Dems announce candidates for debate: Blasio in, Bullock out



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The Democratic National Committee announced Thursday that 20 candidates qualified for the party's first presidential debates at the end of the month.

The Montana governments, Steve Bullock and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, were the only major candidates among the two dozen Democratic candidates for failing to comply with the voting or fund-raising measures needed to get a debate. Former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska and the mayor of Florida, Miramar Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam, have also missed the boat.

US Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was recently in the bubble, both made debate based on poll measurements.

The opening debates of the campaign, which will take place June 26-27 in Miami, will offer a special opportunity for many White House candidates to reshape a race defined in recent weeks by the domination exercised by the city. 39; former Vice President Joe Biden on the national polls and many early polls.

A draw on Friday on NBC News will divide the big field between the first and second night of debate. Party officials promised to weight the draw with the intention of ensuring that high-level candidates and those who lag behind are equally equally distributed on both nights.

These missions will determine the strategies of debate for many campaigns. Candidates will have to decide if they want to attack leaders like Biden, challenge other players in the field or stand out by staying above the fray. They must also decide how to focus on President Donald Trump.

Some candidates have criticized the rules of qualification for debate established by party president Tom Perez this year. Voting and fundraising thresholds will remain the same for July's two-night debates in Detroit.

The Bullock campaign insists that it has reached a minimum of 1% in at least three of the polls from approved agencies. But party officials say Bullock mistakenly counts a February Washington Post-ABC poll.

He said Thursday that he was "certainly disappointed" by the decision of the DNC.

"But the most important thing is that I'm the only one in the field to have won in a Trump state, and we have to recover some of the places we lost," he told MSNBC.

The polls and fundraising scores will double for the third and fourth debates in September and October. Candidates must meet both brands instead of one or the other. This means 2% in approved polls and a list of contributors of at least 130,000 unique contributors.

Former Colorado governor, John Hickenlooper, who will participate in the first debate, questioned some rules during a campaign stoppage Thursday before the announcement of the DNC, but said the candidates had little choice but to respect them.

"Fighting with the DNC is like fighting with the weather," he said. "You can rage against the storm, but you will not have much effect.I think the rules are the rules."

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Associate Press editors Brian Slodysko in Washington and Matt Volz in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report.

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