2019年12月19日，加利福尼亚州洛约拉·玛丽蒙特大学举行的民主党总统初选辩论中，民主党总统候选人前副总统乔·拜登(左)、参议员伯尼·桑德斯(右)和参议员艾米·克洛布查尔(右)的手势。拥挤的人群中有七名候选人有资格参加美国公共广播公司新闻小时和政治科主办的2019年第六次也是最后一次民主党总统初选辩论。
在最后一分钟，亿万富翁活动家汤姆·施泰尔(Tom Steyer)的激增，使得将在爱荷华州得梅因举行的民主党第七次总统辩论中出现在舞台上的合格候选人数量达到了六名。
该活动定于1月14日举行，将是关键的爱荷华州核心会议之前的最后一场辩论，这是美国的第一次初选活动。其他的辩论参与者包括该党的主要候选人，前副总统乔·拜登，以及参议员伯尼·桑德斯和伊丽莎白·沃伦，他们偶尔也会升到第一名。
参议员艾米·克洛布查尔和印第安纳州前南本德市市长皮特·巴蒂吉也获得了参赛资格。
周四晚些时候，施泰尔在内华达州和南卡罗莱纳州的福克斯新闻调查中出人意料地名列前茅。这两次民意测验让他能够为候选人赢得另一种投票途径:在两次早期的州民意测验中至少有7%。
当天，施泰尔只在初选所需的四项民意调查中排名第二，在四项资格调查中获得了至少5%的支持。
离周五午夜资格赛结束只剩下几个小时了，科技企业家杨安泽和参议员科里·布克——唯一达到捐赠门槛的其他候选人——无法用他们的投票数字达成协议。
杨只赢得了初选所需的四个投票中的两个。布克什么也没赚到。
在选民开始表明他们的候选人偏好之前，具有里程碑意义的最后一场辩论也标志着一个不太出名的发展:周二的舞台将是2020年初选中第一个没有有色人种候选人的舞台。
这场辩论将由美国有线电视新闻网和得梅因登记册。
杨，12月辩论中唯一的有色人种候选人，这次很难获得资格。
候选人此前抱怨说，该党不断收紧的投票和捐赠标准排挤了多样性。直到最近，这个领域一直是美国历史上最多样化的候选人阵容，使得周二的全白人辩论舞台形象更加鲜明。
“这是最具包容性的辩论过程，参加辩论的女性和有色人种候选人比亿万富翁多。我们为这个具有历史意义和多样性的领域感到骄傲，前两次辩论有20名候选人参加，之后每次辩论至少有10名候选人参加，”挪威船级社通信主管索绮特·伊诺霍萨告诉记者新闻周刊。“虽然法律要求我们每次辩论都要有客观的标准，但在整个过程中，我们的资格标准一直非常低。没有一个在竞选中未能达到5%的人会被提名，我们的辩论标准反映了这一点。”
该领域的多元化并不一定以牺牲少数选民的偏好为代价。YouGov和《经济学人》我发现将近一半的黑人民主党人和超过三分之一的西班牙裔民主党人更喜欢拜登。其他候选人在吸引同样可观的少数选票方面并不接近。
此外，盖洛普9月份的一项调查发现，73%的非白人对当时参选的候选人感到满意。这表明，得到黑人和西班牙裔选民支持的白人候选人不一定是妥协的选择，而是满足其政治优先事项的个人。
伊诺霍萨补充道:“我们已经将多样性作为优先事项，要求每场辩论都有女性和有色人种作为主持人。”。“我们从未见过一个政党采取如此多的步骤来包容各方。”
现在只有少数有色人种候选人参加竞选，如果资格规则没有改变，他们都不可能再次出现在辩论舞台上。
布克去年12月召集了几名候选人签署了一封信，敦促民主党全国委员会改革辩论阶段的资格标准。
布克上周在接受MSNBC采访时说:“你把人们排除在辩论之外，因为他们没有亿万富翁们经常有的钱来登上这些舞台，这让人感到很沮丧。”。
他补充道，“我绝对同意我们应该缩小范围，但不要以有利于亿万富翁的方式来做，也不要明确地说，这是爱荷华州目前正在进行的最强有力的竞选活动之一，”布克在谈到自己的竞选时说。
WHO QUALIFIED FOR THE JANUARY DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE?
Democratic presidential candidates former Vice President Joe Biden (L), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) gesture during the Democratic presidential primary debate at Loyola Marymount University on December 19, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. Seven candidates out of the crowded field qualified for the 6th and last Democratic presidential primary debate of 2019 hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico.
At the last minute, a surge from billionaire activist Tom Steyer brought the number of qualifying candidates who will appear on stage at the Democratic Party's seventh presidential debates in Des Moines, Iowa to six.
The event, slated for January 14, will be the final debate before the crucial Iowa caucuses, the first primary event in the nation. The other debate participants include the party's leading candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, as well as Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who have themselves risen to first place on occasion.
Senator Amy Klobuchar and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also qualified.
Late on Thursday, Steyer achieved a surprise placement high on two Fox News surveys in Nevada and South Carolina. These two polls allowed him to clinch the alternative polling pathway for candidates: at least 7 percent in two early-state polls.
Coming into the day, Steyer had only ranked in two of four required polls for the primary pathway, garnering at least 5 percent support in four qualifying surveys.
With just hours left to go before the qualifying period closed on Friday at midnight, tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Senator Cory Booker, the only other candidates who achieved the donor threshold, could not seal the deal with their poll numbers.
Yang had earned just two of the four required polls for the primary pathway. Booker had earned none.
The landmark final debate before voters begin to indicate their candidate preference also marks a less celebrated development: Tuesday's stage will be the first during the 2020 primaries to feature no candidates of color.
The debate will be co-hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register.
Yang, the only candidate of color in the December debate, struggled to qualify this time around.
Candidates have previously complained that the party's ever-tightening polling and donation standards were crowding out diversity. Until recently, the field had been the most diverse lineup of candidates in American history, making Tuesday's image of an all-white debate stage even starker.
"This has been the most inclusive debate process, with more women and candidates of color participating in more debates than billionaires. We are proud of this historic and diverse field with 20 candidates participating in the first two debates and at least 10 candidates in each debate after that," DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa told Newsweek. "While we are legally required to have objective criteria for each debate, our qualifying criteria has stayed extremely low throughout this entire process. Nobody who has failed to reach 5% at this point in the race has gone on to be the nominee, and our debate criteria reflects that."
The winnowing diversity of the field is not necessarily coming at the expense of the preferences of minority voters. A recent poll from YouGov and The Economist found that almost half of black Democrats and over one-third of Hispanic Democrats prefer Biden. Other candidates don't come close in terms of attracting a similarly sizeable share of the minority vote.
In addition, a Gallup survey from September found that 73 percent of non-whites were pleased with the crop of candidates who were running at the time. This indicates that white candidates receiving the backing of black and Hispanic voters are not necessarily compromise choices, but rather individuals who satisfy their political priorities.
"We have made diversity a priority by requiring that every debate have women and people of color as moderators," Hinojosa added. "We've never seen a political party take this many steps to be inclusive."
There are now only a few of candidates of color running in the race, and none of them will likely appear on a debate stage again absent a change in the qualification rules.
Booker corralled a handful of candidates in December to sign a letter urging the Democratic National Committee to reform the debate-stage qualification standards.
"There's a sense of just frustration that you're excluding people from a debate because they don't have the money that often billionaires do to get on those stages," Booker said in an interview last week on MSNBC.
He added, "I absolutely agree we should narrow the field, but not to do it in a way that benefits billionaires and not, unequivocally, one of the strongest campaigns going on in Iowa right now," Book said in reference to his own campaign.
