Tulsi Gabbard’s Campaign Hints DNC May Be Purposely Trying to Exclude Her From the Next Debate
Is this a case of sour grapes, or does the Gabbard campaign have a legitimate complaint?
There’s no question that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard delivered a serious blow to Sen. Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign at last month’s Democratic presidential debate.
Though Harris enjoyed a nice polling bump after “winning” the first round of debates where she broadsided Joe Biden, her numbers started falling in mid-July. When Gabbard shined the spotlight on her criminal justice record during the second round of debates, it accelerated Harris’s decline in support.
As a result, Harris has fallen to a 4th place polling average.
Gabbard, on the other hand, has languished in the bottom tier for the entirety of her campaign but still managed to meet the debate criteria established by the DNC for the first two debates.
In contrast to the first two debates, however, Gabbard may not be able to meet the DNC’s criteria for the third round next month in Houston. An analysis of polling outfits has Gabbard’s campaign questioning the validity of that criteria and the timing, hinting that the campaign believes the DNC is purposely trying to exclude her because of how well she did at the last debate.
The Hill reports:
The campaign noted that Gabbard has exceeded 2 percent support in 26 national and early state polls but said only two of those are on DNC’s “certified” list, even as “many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable organizations such as The Economist and the Boston Globe, are ranked by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some DNC ‘certified’ polls.”
“The Gabbard campaign is calling on the DNC to hold true to their promise and make adjustments to the process now to ensure transparency and fairness,” the campaign said in a Friday release. “Crucial decisions on debate qualifications that impact the right of the American people to have the opportunity to participate fully in the Democratic process should not be made in secret by party bosses.”
The DNC raised the threshold to qualify for the upcoming September and October debates, requiring candidates to poll above 2 percent in four DNC-approved polls and raise money from at least 130,000 unique donors.
Per ABC News, Gabbard herself is unable to work “in any capacity” with her campaign right now as she is in Indonesia to complete two weeks of Army National Guard military training. So her campaign is raising these questions on her behalf.
The Gabbard campaign’s press release about the DNC referenced a polling analysis done by journalist Michael Tracey, who asserted Gabbard “is on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd.”
Here’s some of what he found:
What makes a poll “qualifying” in the eyes of the DNC? The answer is conspicuously inscrutable. Months ago, party chieftains issued a list of “approved sponsoring organizations/institutions” for polls that satisfy their criteria for debate admittance. Not appearing on that list is the Boston Globe, which sponsored a Suffolk University poll published Aug. 6 that placed Gabbard at 3%.
The DNC had proclaimed that for admittance to the September and October debates, candidates must secure polling results of 2% or more in four separate “approved” polls — but a poll sponsored by the newspaper with the largest circulation in New Hampshire (the Globe recently surpassed the New Hampshire Union Leader there) does not count, per this cockamamie criteria. There has not been an officially qualifying poll in New Hampshire, Gabbard’s best state, in over a month.
The absurdity mounts. A South Carolina poll published Aug. 14 by the Post and Courier placed Gabbard at 2%. One might have again vainly assumed that the newspaper with the largest circulation in a critical early primary state would be an “approved” sponsor per the dictates of the DNC, but it is not. Curious.
In Gabbard’s press release, her campaign notes the DNC has failed to explain what criteria they are using to “certify” polling organizations. They also point out the number of polls in which she’s hit the 2% mark:
The DNC set a threshold that candidates must meet 2% in four DNC-certified polls in order to qualify for the third and fourth Democratic primary debates. However, the DNC has not released their criteria for selecting the sixteen polling organizations they deem “certified.”
Rep. Gabbard has exceeded 2% support in 26 national and early state polls, but only two of them are on the DNC’s “certified” list. Many of the uncertified polls, including those conducted by highly reputable organizations such as The Economist and the Boston Globe, are ranked by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight as more accurate than some DNC “certified” polls.
[…]
In a 2018 memo laying out their proposed framework for the debates, the DNC wrote, “Given the fluid nature of the presidential nominating process, the DNC will continuously assess the state of the race and make adjustments to this process as appropriate.”
The Gabbard campaign is calling on the DNC to hold true to their promise and make adjustments to the process now to ensure transparency and fairness.
They further note that in contrast to the “certified” polls released between the first round of debates and the second round of debates, only four have been released from “certified” polling orgs since the second round:
Only four of the DNC’s list of sixteen qualifying polling organization …have released a new poll since the second Democratic presidential debate in Detroit (July 30-31).
Is this all a case of sour grapes for so far failing to qualify (there’s only one week left to qualify), or does the Gabbard campaign have a legitimate complaint? The DNC announced the criteria for the third debate back in May, so from that perspective it’s hard to buy any “timing” insinuations that the rules are somehow being altered behind closed doors “by party bosses” to disqualify candidates they don’t want participating.
On the other hand, considering what the DNC did to Sen. Bernie Sanders back in 2016, Gabbard’s campaign may be on to something.
Stay tuned.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
There is no question about this. Democrats are talking about it everywhere. She made the polls and the donors. They want her out to save Warren and Biden from her pointed attacks on their honesty and credibility. Warren in particular is vulnerable and Tulsi’s staff has assembled all the goods.
Spot on!!!!!
DNC has had EVERYTHING totally RIGGED
for Decades now.
OT HUGE:
Michael Mann, of climategate and hockey stick global warming fame, loses in court and is ordered to pay fees and cost to Dr Tim Ball. Dr Ball was one of those that pointed out the hockey stick graph was a fraud.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/08/michael_mann_creator_of_the_infamous_global_warming_hockey_stick_loses_lawsuit_against_climate_skeptic_ordered_to_pay_defendants_costs.html
Thank you.
Wow.
“Dr Mann lost his case because he refused to show in open court his R2 regression numbers (the ‘working out’) behind the world-famous ‘hockey stick’ graph (shown below).”
In a proper scientific paper, the original data (numbers) can be back-calculated because the paper discloses all the underlying calculations and adjustments.
Period.
All the global warmening “scientist’s” are scammers. They cannot show their data as it is all made up.
“The Gabbard campaign is calling on the DNC to hold true to their promise and make adjustments to the process now to ensure transparency and fairness,” the campaign said in a Friday release.
To ensure transparency and fairness, change the rules right before the decision point, to benefit me.
Kamala, ’round heels’ Harris is pliant and easily controlled. Surfer girl not so much. Or perhaps Brown’s control of the party is stronger than it appears.
I think Harris has been chosen by the media and she has Silicon Valley money behind her. She has hired Marc Elias (Perkins-Coie) so he’s probably working on a new, more credible “Dossier”.
The NYTimes is preparing to make everything about race so they have to have a new “black darling” to push.
I think Harris is Hillary without the screech so this could get interesting.
I’ve always assumed that the DNC would decide who looked like the strongest, most party-loyal candidate, and then rig the process so that he or she would get the nomination. That’s what they did for Hillary, and they wouldn’t want to do any less this time around.
They also can’t tolerate an upstart like Gabbard weakening the position of the Chosen One this time, either. I suspect they haven’t decided on the Chosen One yet, but Gabbard isn’t it.
If only four of the 16 approved polling organizations have published polls since the second debate, anyone who did particularly well for the first time at that debate would have to score over 2% in every one of these in order to qualify to attend the next two debates.
Doesn’t this mean that the second debate has much less role in influencing qualification than expected when only four out of sixteen such showings were deemed necessary for qualification?
This could change if the other 12 published polls in the next week.
I think there is a bit of both going on with Gabbard. The DNC protecting their true chosen ones, yet trying to appear “fair” to the clown car candidates, would look to find a way to winnow away the non-contenders.
Frankly, if Gabbard is at 2% she isn’t going anywhere. It’s a joke to think she can gain traction by attacking Biden or Warren enough to pull out a Cinderella story rise to prominence. Anyone polling that low and not dropping out are in it for the money and notoriety for other runs they might consider. They aren’t serious contenders. They might be auditioning for positions of note in a National Socialist Presidency cabinet or as running mate. Gabbard is of tough stuff given her career, and had zero problem with bucking command, it’s in her “DNA” so to speak.
I do think she has a much higher opinion of herself than the polls indicate. I also think the DNC puppet masters have concerns of her harming the ultimate “winner” of the primary, which gives Trump ammunition to use from one of their own.
I think she could expose both Biden and Warren on a stage where it is tough to hide under the media’s spin machine cover. Though few people watch the debates, so their propaganda would still be effective against the low information sheep. It is more likely Harris is just not likeable and her momentary rise was more to do with her name in the news and her Lie produced t-shirt campaign fund raiser. If the change in polling were reflective of the debate exposures, why hasn’t Gabbard gotten higher polling results?
I think her claims of sponsors for the polls is also weak sauce. As well as polls not being particularly trustworthy. Polls at this time are particularly suspect, they are more agenda and opinion report driven to be presented as news, to push the narrative.
I’d be fine watching the clowns eat their own for longer. Which is the real DNC fear. Making them defend themselves against others in their party given the weak field of playas is not a good look for this sad bunch of candidates. The news now labeling “presidential candidate” to people who throw their name into the primary that are never seriously considered candidates only creates more morons who are impressed by unearned titles.
Well she’s a little white (actually Samoan on one side) shark. I like seeing her savage the big fish. As a registered Democrat, I’d probably vote for her if she ever made the California primary. Of course I wouldn’t vote for her in the general next November, but that’s another issue.
Obama spied, Clinton colluded, Biden obstructed, the media hunted witches and held warlock trials, and the DNC denied. Democracy is not a viable choice for Democrats.
Have her change her first name to “Hillary”
It’s not like the DNC has no history of fixing elections.
Great idea: Let’s have Primaries and not the good old boys in smoke filled rooms deciding candidates. Someone should try it.
While I don’t agree with her on most issues, Tulsi is by far the sanest of the Democratic field.
Super delegates may be a thing of the past, but rest assured the Democrats have a plan for rigging the nomination process.
Which is why it is probably better for us to not have her get the nomination. But I really think the DNC is shooting their own foot!
Not to worry, being “…the sanest of the Democratic field.” does not imply actual sanity. 🙂
Ms Gabbard is still a left wing proponent of serious wealth killing socialism. She falls short of outright communism.
Exactly what is it that Gabbard has in common with these freaks other than a “D” before her name? What is Gabbard’s contention about having an “R” before her name?
Well Gabbard’s positions are far left, and the Republican presidential candidate is known anyway so no point in running for that nomination. So D fits well.
Whether she’s invited or not, qualified or not, she should show up at the debates and make a lot of noise – find the media and state her case. Live stream/tweet her own commentary on the debate if she’s shut out. I don’t think she has to be on stage to score some more kill shots.
Whether the rules have been adjusted to smack down Gabbard, if it’s true as her campaign claims that 12 of the 16 approved polls haven’t published results in over a month (since before the 2nd debate), that’s a serious flaw that every borderline candidate should be shouting about.
It’s not reflective of the current state of the campaign and supports the claim that the rules work to suppress challengers in favor of early leaders (the people with name recognition).
Yhe Democrat Party controls who comes to its “official” debates, but a significant news organization with the capacity to broadcast a rogue debate could set one up for excluded candidates. The candidates have nothing to lose by participating if they really think they have a chance, while if they are really only after name recognition for the future or angling for something else, they remain free to decline, thereby showing their true colors. That kind of debate would probably attract higher viewership than the official, cream-puff debate does, and it might actually do serious damage to one of the insider favored candidates. Imagine, for example, what would happen if a candidate produced props consisting of Warren’s bar admission form or pictures of houses owned by candidates or plagiarized speeches. And it’s really no-lose. If the improbable happened and one of the candidates participating in a rogue debate actually broke out and started moving up the polls, there is no way, in practical terms, that the Democrat Party could exclude that candidate going forward.
The Democrats should scrap the qualification method with polls and individual contributions. Steyer has shown that he can rig the latter. A 2% threshold still allows in candidates who have a solid core of die-hard support but no upside. As happened with the Republicans in 2016, the likely scenario is a growing support for the individual who is most different from the rest. That’s usually a recipe for disaster, since it ends up selecting somebody on the far fringe. The Republicans just happened to get lucky and 2016, when the Democrats, for reasons of identity politics, rigged their process to nominate the only candidate who was less electable. Finally, lest anyone think that the Democrats have actually given up super-delegates, remember that they will not be voting only in the first round. Unless someone emerges with the nomination on the first ballot, the super-delegates will be able, as they did in the past, to ensure that the nomination is thrown to whomever they want. Every candidate not named Harris ouhat to be hoping that the early date for the California primary does not give her enough delegates and momentum to give her a majority coming into the convention. Were that to happen, she would be quite happy until she realized that that would be viewed by a great number of Democrats and independents as as bad a flaw as the way Clinton was nominated in 2016. But if there is no first ballot winner and the super-delegates throw it to someone one else, same outcome.
The Democrats should scrap the qualification method with polls and individual contributions. Steyer has shown that he can rig the latter. A 2% threshold still allows in candidates who have a solid core of die-hard support but no upside. As happened with the Republicans in 2016, the likely scenario is a growing support for the individual who is most different from the rest. That’s usually a recipe for disaster, since it ends up selecting somebody on the far fringe. The Republicans just happened to get lucky and 2016, when the Democrats, for reasons of identity politics, rigged their process to nominate the only candidate who was less electable. Finally, lest anyone think that the Democrats have actually given up super-delegates, remember that they will not be voting only in the first round. Unless someone emerges with the nomination on the first ballot, the super-delegates will be able, as they did in the past, to ensure that the nomination is thrown to whomever they want. Every candidate not named Harris ouhat to be hoping that the early date for the California primary does not give her enough delegates and momentum to give her a majority coming into the convention. Were that to happen, she would be quite happy until she realized that that would be viewed by a great number of Democrats and independents as as bad a flaw as the way Clinton was nominated in 2016. But if there is no first ballot winner and the super-delegates throw it to someone one else, same outcome.
To be a little bit clearer than I might have been in my last comment, the legitimate function of the super-delegates can be only either of two things. First,
to come in, when there has been a near-majority plurality candidate in the firsr ballot, and just move that candidates’ total over the top to prevent chaos. But if several candidates emerge as having significant support in the first ballot, it would be a bad move for the super-delegates, even with their large number of votes, to pick one on the second ballot and be done with it without letting the convention take its normal course for at least a few more ballots. The other possibly legitimate function is debatable: to prevent a McGovern-type disaster. From the vantage point of next summer, it may well be clear that the majority of the Democrat Party delegates favor Sanders or Warren in the aggregate and that the insiders want to nominate Biden. (Obviously, I am not stating that as a normative matter but merely positing it as one of several possibilities.) At that point, how the super-delegates and others act, who makes what deals with whom etc. could be more reminiscent of the old smoke-filled rooms than would be comfortable.
To be a little bit clearer than I might have been in my last comment, the legitimate function of the super-delegates can be only either of two things. First,
to come in, when there has been a near-majority plurality candidate in the firsr ballot, and just move that candidates’ total over the top to prevent chaos. But if several candidates emerge as having significant support in the first ballot, it would be a bad move for the super-delegates, even with their large number of votes, to pick one on the second ballot and be done with it without letting the convention take its normal course for at least a few more ballots. The other possibly legitimate function is debatable: to prevent a McGovern-type disaster. From the vantage point of next summer, it may well be clear that the majority of the Democrat Party delegates favor Sanders or Warren in the aggregate and that the insiders want to nominate Biden. (Obviously, I am not stating that as a normative matter but merely positing it as one of several possibilities.) At that point, how the super-delegates and others act, who makes what deals with whom etc. could be more reminiscent of the old smoke-filled rooms than would be comfortable.
Ms. Gabbard is truly, the ONLY attractive candidate running.
Michael Tracey is absolutely correct that the DNC’s “qualified” polls were far too limited. The problem is, like it or not, expanding the list of “qualified” polls just isn’t going to work this far into the game.
The bigger issue is whether the DNC is manipulating the polls by covertly discouraging their “qualified” polls from issuing any new releases until after the deadline (August 28) for the September debate. That’s a more subtle — and genuinely illegitimate — way to insure that once DNC’s favored candidates have made the cut, no one else will be able to. And there really have been suspiciously few “qualified” polls issued during August.
Tulsi could still qualify for the October debates, assuming the DNC doesn’t game the system again by discouraging its “qualified” polls from issuing new releases during September.
Tulsi’s in it, though, for at least quite a bit longer — at least through Iowa and NH, I think, no matter what else happens. She’s already succeeding at one of her main goals, pushing the Overton Window on the issue of anti-interventionism and regime-change wars.
Two other points. Tulsi’s got an edge that candidates like Seth Moulton have lacked. Her support is quite deep and loyal and very likely to stick with her come h*** or high water, so what she needs to do is expand from that base; and considering her still-weak name recognition, it’s doable even if difficult.
The second point is that we’re talking about early caucus/primary states, and a significantly better-than-expected showing in Iowa or NH could give her a significant boost, especially if she’s connecting with Millennials who don’t show up well in ground-line phone polling, which favors Biden-leaning oldsters. (And I can get away with saying that, considering I’m 68.)
A final observation. If a number of the other “low tier” candidates drop out in the next couple of months, this could help Tulsi on the problem of improving her name-recognition since she’ll have substantially less competition in doing so.
On that problem, name recognition, I have to say that I’m not fond of the “Tulsi 2020” branding. “Bernie 2020” is okay, considering everyone knows who Bernie is, but Tulsi’s branding really needs to include her full name along with “President” and “2020” — and a photo if possible, subject to size constraints in any particular medium. As a die-hard Tulsicrat, I’ve done exactly that with some magnetic signs I’ve self-designed for my car doors.
“Her support is quite deep and loyal and very likely to stick with her come h*** or high water, so what she needs to do is expand from that base; and considering her still-weak name recognition, it’s doable even if difficult.”
Define “deep” for us. Her poll numbers are 2% or less among democrats, hardly deep.
Hope doesn’t translate into votes. She has zero chance.
If the DNC excludes her, she should announce a big public rally for the same night as the debate, and invite FNC to cover it. By various accounts, folks are bored with the current Democrat slate, and the
debatesscripted performances are not getting all that much viewership. She could score a big PR with it, and a good poll bump.“…and invite FNC to cover it.”
Hate to break it to someone with such an iconic name, but Fox is on the Dems side except for a couple hours in the evening. I doubt they’re going to help.
If she were to hold an event at the same time, there is no doubt that Fox would cover it — maybe not start to finish, but a fair amount — not because of whose side they are or are not on but because it is news and because the DNC stupidly shut Fox out so they have nothing to lose by not kowtowing to the DNC. Open question whether Fox might go so far as to stage an event with her, Bullock, Bennett and maybe some others whom the DNC shuts out. Since there are no rules for this, Fox can include or exclude whomever they choose. But I doubt that Fox could successfully stage an event like that, because the candidates would be reluctant to participate. They would be asked questions that had not been approved by Tom Perez or leaked by Donna Brazille in advance, questions whose honest answers could seriously wound the DNC’s favored candidates, expose the Party’s entire policy program to ridicule and show the world what the Party’s anti-Semitic radicals really are. No Democrat could survive the withering fire that would be leveled by the jackals in the mainstream media for “doing Trump’s bidding.” At least some of these candidates (Ms. Gabbard, for example) have potential futures in the Party that they can preserve if they shut up and accept with a whimper what the DNC does to them now but can be destroyed by the DNC through money allocations and encouragement of primaries if they buck the bosses.
To quote myself:
“…Fox is on the Dems side except for a couple hours in the evening. I doubt they’re going to help.”
Nope, not going to happen.
Super Polls; polling based on the DNC’s desired outcome.
Tulsi Gabbard is too conservative for the “Progressives” who control the Democrat Party.
I am surprised the didn’t schedule the debate while she was overseas on National Guard duty!