DNC Announces 10 Candidates in Atlanta Democratic Debate

(Bloomberg) -- The Democratic National Committee on Thursday announced the 10 candidates who will participate in the fifth Democratic primary debate in Atlanta on Wednesday.

They are: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang.

Julian Castro, who participated in previous debates, most recently in October at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, didn’t make the cut. Another October participant, Beto O’Rourke, has dropped out of the race. Deval Patrick, a former governor of Massachusetts who announced his candidacy on Thursday, also won’t be on the stage at the Tyler Perry Studios.

The forum will be co-hosted by the Washington Post and MSNBC. Candidates will be questioned by four female moderators: Rachel Maddow, Andrea Mitchell and Kristen Welker from the network, and Ashley Parker from the Post.

The two-hour event had a higher bar to qualify than previous debates. Candidates must have contributions from 165,000 donors, up from 135,000.

And the donors must be geographically dispersed, with a minimum of 600 per state in at least 20 states. In addition, participants must either show 3% support in four qualifying national or single-state polls, or have at least 5% support in two qualifying single-state polls released between Sept. 13 and Nov. 13 in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.

The sixth debate will take place next month in Los Angeles.

To contact the reporter on this story: Max Berley in Washington at mberley@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, John Harney

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