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The Democratic debates in Miami are winding down, but it’s just the beginning for the candidates hoping to win the Democratic primary nomination. Here’s a look at what we know so far about the next debates and how many are left.
Tonight marks the second in a two-night debate lineup hosted by NBC. The debate on Thursday, June 27 will start at 9 p.m. Eastern and is scheduled to last until 11 p.m. Eastern. It will be broadcast on NBC News, MSNBC, and Telemundo.
The lineup for the second debate will be: Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, John Hickenlooper, Bernie Sanders, Eric Swalwell, Marianne Williamson, and Andrew Yang. The debate will be held at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami and the moderators will be Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, and Jose Diaz-Balart.
But what happens after tonight? The schedule will be packed for a while.
The next debates will be on July 30 and 31 in Detroit. These debates will be hosted by CNN, but the format will be essentially the same as tonight’s debates. There will be 10 people on each night, they will be picked the same way they were picked for this week, and the qualifications to be in those debates will also be the same.
Then things will change. The third set of debates will be on September 12, possibly also September 13 depending on how many candidates qualify. This one will be hosted by ABC and Univision and a location has not yet been shared. Candidates will have a different set of qualifiers, however. They’ll have to get donations from 130,000 different donors, which must include 400 from 20 different states. They must also hit 2 percent in four different qualifying polls. So it will be tougher to get into the September debates.
After September, there will be one debate every month until April 2020. Yes, that means you’ll get to watch a debate in October 2019, November 2019, December 2019, January 2020, February 2020, March 2020, and April 2020. We just don’t know who is hosting those debates, where they’ll take place, or who will be in them yet. But it’s going to be a packed and busy schedule for the remaining Democratic primary candidates.