Barring a minor miracle for a candidate that’s already an extreme long shot. There will officially be ten candidates in the third debate hosted by ABC on September 12th. That’ll also mean they’ll be just one debate night. ABC indicated they’d go to two nights if more than ten candidates qualified. The ten candidates that made it are:
- Joe Biden
- Cory Booker
- Pete Buttigieg
- Julián Castro
- Kamala Harris
- Amy Klobuchar
- Beto O'Rourke
- Bernie Sanders
- Elizabeth Warren
- Andrew Yang
What’s interesting is what’s already been accomplished up to this point. Yes, Biden and Sanders were always expected to be here. So were Booker and even Beto. Elisabeth Warren’s resurgence has surprised many but it’s the emergence of Buttigieg and Yang that are the most interesting. Politics, as usual, was a large part of the success of an outsider like Donald Trump. While Democrats are generally still aggregating around people who’ve held traditional political posts, Buttigieg a mayor of a college town and Yang an entrepreneur, have already knocked off more than ten of the more traditional sort of politician. While the debate field is diverse, most people stop with the age, race, and sexuality of the candidates they miss the point. There’s a growing undercurrent of Democrats who want something different too. Many were laughing at Herman Cain for his attempt to jump from business to president until Donald Trump did it. Democrats might not be ready this time around but just like Herman’s 9-9-9 plan was perhaps a precursor to MAGA four years later, we could be a cycle away from the end of Democrats. We can only hope and change, pun intended.
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