2020 Presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has announced that she’s skipping December’s Democratic debate, even if she qualifies for it.
On the evening of December 9th, Gabbard tweeted, “For a number of reasons, I have decided not to attend the December 19th ‘debate’ – regardless of whether or not there are qualifying polls.”
“I instead choose to spend that precious time directly meeting with and hearing from the people of New Hampshire and South Carolina,” she added.
So far, the Hawaii congresswoman has yet to qualify for December’s debate. To do so, she’ll need one more poll which shows that she has at least 4 percent support or more. Up until now, Gabbard has qualified for all of the Democratic debates except for the one that took place in September.
Gabbard has frequently criticized the Democratic National Committee (DNC), alleging last month that the organization was “arbitrary and inconsistent” for refusing to accept a poll conducted by Suffolk University. In October, she accused the DNC and the globalist media of “rigging” the race and threatened to boycott that month’s debate. The Hawaiian congresswoman did end up attending that debate, however.
The deadline for qualifying for the December 19th debate is the 12th of December. To qualify, candidates need to have 4 percent support or more in four polls and 200,000 unique donations, or two state-level polls at 6 percent.
So far, only six candidates have qualified for the debate: Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and billionaire Tom Steyer.
The only candidate other than Gabbard that’s close to qualifying is tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang.