The candidate lineup for the second round of Democratic presidential debates taking place in Detroit on July 30 and 31 were announced Thursday night in a live hour-long, primetime drawing on CNN.
Here's who will be up on night one:
- Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren
- Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
- Montana Gov. Steve Bullock
- Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan
- Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper
- Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney
- Author and speaker Marianne Williamson
- Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar
- South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg
- Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke
And here's who will be up night two:
- California Sen. Kamala Harris
- Former vice president Joe Biden
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio
- Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet
- Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
- New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
- Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
- New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker
- Entrepreneur Andrew Yang
- Former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julián Castro
In an effort to avoid an unfair balance of top-tier candidates appearing on the same night, CNN and the Democratic National Committee selected the lineup of the debate stages by random drawing. The drawing was performed by CNN anchors, who placed blue placards into two cardboard boxes to match candidates with debate night dates.
CNN split the random drawing for debate night spots into three groups based on public polling support and drew candidates’ names and dates from two separate boxes. The first draw included the 10 lower-polling candidates: Bennet, Bullock, de Blasio, Delaney, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, Inslee, Ryan, and Williamson.
The second draw included six mid-range candidates: Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, Klobuchar, O’Rourke, and Yang.
The third draw included the top-polling candidates Biden, Harris, Warren, and Sanders.
The DNC announced on Wednesday that 20 of the 24 candidates currently running had qualified for the debates.
Rep. Seth Moulton and Mayor Wayne Messam, who did not meet qualifications for the first debate, also failed to make the cutoff for the second debate stage. Former Sen. Mike Gravel, whose campaign initially said he was not running to win, also did not make the new debate stage after missing out on the June debate.
(Gravel’s campaign staff said that Gravel met the donor threshold to qualify for the debates and they’ve protested the DNC’s qualification rules, which favor polling averages. They have pointed out that their campaign has been left out of many qualifying polls.)
Former Rep. Joe Sestak and billionaire investor and Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer, who entered the presidential field in late June and early July respectively, also failed to meet qualifications to make it onto the debate stage in Detroit.
Campaigns had until 11 a.m. Wednesday to submit certifications to the DNC that they had received campaign contributions from 65,000 unique donors including 200 donors each from 20 states, or that they reached 1% support in three polls from an approved list. That threshold will double in the fall when candidates will need 2% in four qualifying polls and 130,000 unique donors, including 400 donors each in 20 states.