If you thought all the remaining primary debates were going to be one-night affairs, think again. On Sunday, billionaire activist Tom Steyer got his fourth qualifying poll thanks to an early-state survey from Nevada, which means 11 candidates have now met the polling and donor thresholds for the Democrats’ fourth debate. And Tulsi Gabbard has announced that, based on one subset of respondents, she got a third qualifying poll this weekend, but the Democratic National Committee has confirmed that it is looking at different set of respondents and the poll will not count for her.
The fourth debate is scheduled for Oct. 15 and possibly Oct. 16 (the DNC hasn’t yet confirmed whether it will use a second debate night now that more than 10 candidates have qualified). The qualification thresholds are the same as those for the third debate: Candidates must attract both 2 percent support in four qualifying national or early-state polls released between June 28 and Oct. 1, and collect contributions from 130,000 unique donors (including at least 400 individual donors in at least 20 states).1 Given these rules, the 10 candidates who qualified for the third debate automatically made the fourth debate. And a CBS News/YouGov poll was the last survey Steyer needed to qualify.
The Democrats may need two debate nights in October
Democratic presidential candidates* by whether and how they have qualified for the fourth primary debate, as of Sept. 9
| MET THRESHOLD FOR … | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | No. of Polls | Polls | Donors | Qualified |
| Joe Biden | 16 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pete Buttigieg | 16 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Kamala Harris | 16 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bernie Sanders | 16 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Elizabeth Warren | 16 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cory Booker | 13 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Beto O’Rourke | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Andrew Yang | 7 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Julián Castro | 6 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Amy Klobuchar | 6 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tom Steyer | 4 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tulsi Gabbard | 2 | ✓ | ||
| Marianne Williamson | 1 | ✓ | ||
| Michael Bennet | 0 | |||
| Steve Bullock | 0 | |||
| Bill de Blasio | 0 | |||
| John Delaney | 0 | |||
| Tim Ryan | 0 | |||
| Joe Sestak | 0 | |||
But while Steyer is in, Gabbard remains two polls shy despite some controversy. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll released this weekend, Gabbard had 1 percent support among all adult respondents but 2 percent among registered voters. The DNC’s policy is to use a poll’s top-line number, which in this case was the support among all adults, as it appeared first in the survey. This has come up before: In a previous ABC News/Washington Post survey, the DNC likewise used the percentage among adults. The DNC confirmed to FiveThirtyEight on Sunday that the number for all adults (where Gabbard got 1 percent) would be the one that counts this time, too.
That doesn’t mean that Gabbard is going to let it go — her campaign has expressed frustration with the DNC’s polling standards in the past — and on Sunday afternoon, well after the poll’s release, Gabbard tweeted that the survey was her third poll, despite the DNC’s clarification. With less than a month to go until the deadline for qualification for the fourth debate, every poll really does count, and Gabbard is going to need all the help she can get.