- Andrew Yang was the 9th candidate to meet both qualifications for the debates in Houston.
- Yang is edging out many career politicians.
- Yang will also be present in the fourth debates in October.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Andrew Yang formally announced that he has qualified for the fall debates weeks ago, but how did he get there?
Qualifying for the fall debates is much more difficult than the first two. In the first debates, candidates needed to poll at one percent or have 65,500 individual donors. The fall debates have a much higher benchmark that needs to be reached.
One of the requirements is that a candidate must have donations from 130,000 different people. On top of that, they need 400 donors in at least 20 different states. This was the first threshold that Andrew Yang met.
The next qualifier is the polling requirement. A candidate needs to be polling at two percent in four polls to make it to the fall debates. The polls must occur between June 28 and August 28. The polls have to be from a list of approved pollsters provided by the DNC.
Yang reached two percent in three different polls about midway between that period. It was official when a Monmouth poll released on Aug 8 that Andrew Yang was at two percent.
Houston will not be the last place you will see Andrew Yang. Interestingly enough, the qualifications for the fourth debates are the same as the third. This means that Yang will also participate in the debates that will happen in October.
Due to the high benchmark, only ten candidates have qualified for the fall debates so far. Yang is currently edging out many career politicians and is heading to Houston. Yang’s election odds are looking good as well. On Bovada, Yang has +2000 odds of becoming the Democratic nominee. Yang also has +2500 of winning the 2020 Presidential election. Chances are, his election odds will improve since he is going to the fall debates.