Democrats To Face Tougher Criteria For Presidential Debate In November

The Democratic National Committee announced Monday that it’s slightly raising the bar for candidates to qualify for the fifth Democratic presidential primary debate which could prevent a few long-shot hopefuls from taking the stage in November.

Candidates must either earn 3% or more in four DNC-approved polls up from 2% for the September and October debates or clear 5% in two polls in the four early states: Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

They must also receive donations from at least 165,000 individual donors and prove they have at least 600 unique donors in at least 20 states, U.S. territories or the District of Columbia, according to a DNC press release .

At its most saturated, the field of Democratic candidates included more than two dozen presidential hopefuls, but the number has fallen to 19 in recent weeks.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio , Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ended their campaigns after failing to qualify for the September debate .

So far, 11 candidates have qualified for the fourth Democratic debate, which is scheduled for Oct. 15, with a possible second round to be held on Oct. 16. The debate will be co-hosted by The New York Times and CNN .

The candidates who have qualified include the 10 who participated in the September debate former Vice President Joe Biden ; Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.); South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro; former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas; and businessman Andrew Yang as well as billionaire investor Tom Steyer.

Qualifying donations must be received by seven days before the date of the November debate. Similarly, qualifying polls must be publicly released between Sept. 13 and seven days before the November debate.

The date, location and co-host of the November debate have not yet been released.