On Thursday of this week, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced the 20 candidates who made the cut for the first Democratic debate. Just moments ago, NBC has now released the nightly schedule for the first debate and provided details on which candidates will appear on which night of the debate.
Official NBC debate lineup
Night One – June 26
9 pm ET (6 pm PT) on NBC, MSNBC
Cory Booker, senator from New Jersey
Julián Castro, former housing secretary
Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York
John Delaney, former representative from Maryland
Tulsi Gabbard, representative from Hawaii
Jay Inslee, governor of Washington
Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota
Beto O’Rourke, former representative from Texas
Tim Ryan, representative from Ohio
Elizabeth Warren, senator from Massachusetts
Night Two – June 27
9 pm ET (6 pm PT) on NBC, MSNBC
Michael Bennet, senator from Colorado
Joe Biden, former vice president
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind.
Kirsten Gillibrand, senator from New York
Kamala Harris, senator from California
John Hickenlooper, former governor of Colorado
Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont
Eric Swalwell, representative from California
Marianne Williamson, self-help author
Andrew Yang, former tech executive
The debate on both nights will be moderated by Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt and Chuck Todd, the Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart, and the MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow. The team of five will rotate in and out for various topics during the course of each debate night.
Bernie gets Biden on stage
The most newsworthy item on the list is that Bernie Sanders will appear on the same night, June 27, as Joe Biden. This inevitably means the candidates with the highest amount of support in the field will take up a lot of the oxygen from other candidates.
This also means that the first night, on June 26, will not feature any heavyweight names aside from Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke, though Beto has been swimming in the low single digits lately.
The second night, on June 27, features Joe Biden along with Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and even Kamala Harris, all top contenders in the polls. This lineup, which was chosen at random, according to NBC, means the first night will be the most-watched and the second night may end up being considered more of an undercard event. That’s bad news for Elizabeth Warren who is making headway lately and desperately needs to keep her momentum going.
Follow the 2020 Democratic Debate schedule for the latest details on the first Democratic debate including how to watch, live stream links, and full videos.
