NORTH CONWAY, N.H. — The morning after the Democrats’ last debate in December, the Democratic National Committee announced the thresholds to qualify for the next one, scheduled for Jan. 14 in Des Moines: 5 percent support in four qualifying polls, or 7 percent in two early-state polls. With those steeper requirements in place, just five candidates have qualified so far: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar.
Those who haven’t made the cut are getting angry about relying on the results of public polling — when no polls that count have been released since the last debate, on Dec. 19.
If any of the lower-tier candidates got a boost from that last debate, there have been no qualifying polls to reflect it. With just one week to go before the Jan. 10 qualification deadline, there’s been no way for Andrew Yang or Tom Steyer — who are on the fringe of making the debate stage — or anyone else (like Cory Booker, who needs a lot of help) to secure a spot.
The five candidates who have already qualified did so on the basis of polling from before Dec. 19. (Candidates must also receive donations from at least 225,000 supporters. Mr. Steyer announced Friday that he’d reached that threshold. Mr. Yang and Mr. Booker had already gotten there.)
The current polling gap has prompted a series of grievances from the candidates at risk of not making the January debate. Mr. Yang wants the D.N.C. to conduct its own polling, given the dearth of surveys from D.N.C.-approved news organizations and other polling firms. There are 16 polling groups on the D.N.C.’s list, including The New York Times, but none released a poll over the holidays.
Mr. Booker got eight other candidates to sign onto a letter asking for the polling threshold to be abolished entirely. Mr. Booker is spending more than $300,000 on TV to boost his numbers in Iowa — but there hasn’t been a qualifying Iowa poll since Nov. 17.
The D.N.C.’s response is essentially: Sorry, not sorry.
Tom Perez, the D.N.C. chairman, declined a request for an interview, but his spokeswoman, Xochitl Hinojosa, said there had been 17 polls in the time period that qualified for the January debate — though there were 26 for the December debate and 32 for the one in November. She suggested it was the fault of polling organizations, including The Times, that there weren’t more.
“The D.N.C. will not sponsor our own debate-qualifying polls of presidential candidates during a primary,” she said. “The New York Times and the expansive list of 16 qualifying poll sponsors should conduct more independent polling.”
Of course, there may not be a Jan. 14 debate, if the senators in the race are compelled to stay in Washington for an impeachment trial.