How Many Presidential Candidates Are There, Exactly?
It's a very crowded race.
The landscape for the 2020 presidential election feels like it's changing literally every day, but—touch wood—we're in the final stretch of new candidates entering this (very tightly packed!) race. So how many presidential candidates are we looking at, as of this moment? Well, the number is by no means fixed, but as it stands, we're looking at 20 total candidates. That said, things are absolutely still in flux, and the remaining debates will be sure to weed out some of the presidential hopefuls.
Including incumbent President Donald Trump, there are 21 presidential candidates in total as of right now. There are currently 18 Democratic candidates, and two other Republican candidates.
The Democratic candidates are:
- Michael Bennet
- Joe Biden
- Cory Booker
- Steve Bullock
- Pete Buttigieg
- Julián Castro
- John Delaney
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Kamala Harris
- Amy Klobuchar
- Wayne Messam
- Beto O’Rourke
- Tim Ryan
- Bernie Sanders
- Tom Steyer
- Elizabeth Warren
- Marianne Williamson
- Andrew Yang
And the Republican candidates:
- Mark Sanford
- President Donald Trump
- William Weld
An interesting aspect of the 2020 Democratic debates (of which there have been three rounds so far, with three more to go until the big day next November) are the strict requirements that decide which candidates can take part in the presidential debates. According to CBS News, "If more than 20 candidates qualify for the debate, the DNC has said it will choose participants with 'a methodology that gives primacy to candidates meeting both thresholds, followed by the highest polling average, followed by the most unique donors." In essence, whoever receives the most funding and polls the highest will secure podiums in the debates.
As the race to the Democratic nomination gets tighter and tighter, so do the conditions that determine whether they'll appear onstage. The fast-approaching October debate (scheduled for Tuesday October 15) will see 12 of the aforementioned Democrats taking the stage to share their policies, but for November, the threshold is even higher, and it's likely that the candidate pool will shrink even further as a result. In order to qualify for the fifth round of debates, candidates must receive at least 3 percent in four different DNC-approved polls and have 165,000 unique donors supporting their campaigns—including a minimum of 600 donors per state in at least 20 states, territories or the District of Columbia. Alternatively, they may also qualify by getting 5% in two approved polls in the early state primaries of battlegrounds like Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Nevada.
Curious about the remaining candidates and their platforms? You can go here to take a look at some of their key issues, but keep in mind that the list will likely change drastically as the days go on. Watch this space!
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