Looking just past the Iowa caucuses on February 3, the next Democratic debate coming up will happen right before the New Hampshire primary, which itself is set for February 11. The eighth Democratic debate of the 2020 cycle will take place in the Granite State and the stage just expanded to seven candidates with Andrew Yang now earning a spot thanks to some recent positive poll numbers.
Here’s the rundown on all the latest for this pivotal debate which will happen just days after the Iowa caucuses.
ABC/WMUR New Hampshire Democratic Debate (8th Debate)
Time: 8 pm ET (7 pm CT, 6 pm MT, 5 pm PT)
Date: Friday, February 7, 2020
Watch On: ABC
Live Stream: ABCNews.com, WMUR.com, Apple News, YouTube
Location: St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH
Sponsors: ABC News, WMUR, Apple News
Moderators: George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, Linsey Davis
Politico reports on the good news for Yang:
Andrew Yang will be back on the debate stage.
After failing to qualify for a debate in Iowa earlier this month, Yang has earned a spot at the next Democratic primary debate, in New Hampshire on Feb. 7.
Yang is the seventh candidate to qualify for the debate — which will be hosted by ABC News, WMUR-TV and Apple News — joining Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer and Elizabeth Warren, according to POLITICO’s tracking of public polling and donor data.
Debate candidate list
As it stands today, seven candidates would qualify to be on stage for the Feb. 7 debate, with the addition of any candidates that earn at least one pledged delegate in the Iowa caucuses.
| Candidate | Polls | Donors | Qualified | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Biden | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Pete Buttigieg | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Amy Klobuchar | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Bernie Sanders | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Tom Steyer | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Elizabeth Warren | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Andrew Yang | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| Not Qualified | ||||||
| Mike Bloomberg | ✓ | |||||
| Michael Bennet | ||||||
| John Delaney | ||||||
| Tulsi Gabbard | ||||||
| Deval Patrick | ||||||
With Yang now on stage, and unless anyone else in the field can earn at least one delegate in the Iowa caucuses, the New Hampshire debate will feature these seven candidates.
Based on historical voting patterns in the Iowa caucuses, it’s unlikely that any of the candidates outside the seven already on stage will end up receiving a single delegate. It takes more than grabbing a few percentages of the final vote in the caucuses to actually capture a pledged delegate so the chances for Bloomberg or Gabbard are pretty slim to make the New Hampshire debate.
How candidates qualify
Candidates can qualify if they capture donations from 225,000 individual donors, in addition to receiving at least 5 percent support in four polls, which can be national polls or surveys of voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. Iowa is excluded from this list since the Feb. 7 debate takes place after the Iowa caucuses.
The candidates have a window for polls released between Dec. 13 and Feb. 6, the day before the New Hampshire debate, to qualify based on polling.
The new alternative way that a candidate can qualify is tied to the Iowa caucus results. Any candidate who is awarded at least one pledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention based on the results of the Iowa caucuses, as reported and calculated by the Iowa Democratic Party, will be able to participate.
Debate moderators
ABC News recently announced the team of moderators which includes chief anchor George Stephanopoulos, World News Tonight anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News correspondent Linsey Davis.
- George Stephanopoulos – Chief anchor for ABC News
- David Muir – World News Tonight anchor and managing editor
- Linsey Davis – ABC News correspondent
More debate information
Follow the 2020 Democratic Debate schedule page for the latest on all the February Democratic debates.
