After a more or less random lottery supervised by Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez in New York today, the DNC announced which of the 20 qualified candidates would appear in each of the first-round debates on June 26 and June 27 in Miami. The New York Times listed the lineup alphabetically:
Night One: June 26
Cory Booker, senator from New Jersey
Julián Castro, former housing secretary
Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York
John Delaney, former representative from Maryland
Tulsi Gabbard, representative from Hawaii
Jay Inslee, governor of Washington
Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota
Beto O’Rourke, former representative from Texas
Tim Ryan, representative from Ohio
Elizabeth Warren, senator from Massachusetts
Night Two: June 27
Michael Bennet, senator from Colorado
Joseph R. Biden Jr., former vice president
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind.
Kirsten Gillibrand, senator from New York
Kamala Harris, senator from California
John Hickenlooper, former governor of Colorado
Bernie Sanders, senator from Vermont
Eric Swalwell, representative from California
Marianne Williamson, self-help author
Andrew Yang, former tech executive
The DNC had sorted the candidates into two tiers — those who are polling at over 2 percent in national polls, and those who aren’t — and chose randomly from each to prevent “clustering” of the top prospects. But there’s only so much you can do with lotteries: Four of the five candidates in the RealClearPolitics national polling averages — Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg and Harris — will clash on the second night. Elizabeth Warren is the only polling heavyweight on night one, which could give her an advantage unless viewers perceive it as a sort of preliminary bronze-medal event. It does seem likely that the lesser-known candidates on night two will have trouble getting any attention, so it will not be surprising if one or more of them pull a stunt or throw a bomb.
It remains to be seen how the candidates will be positioned on the stage — i.e., which would-be presidents will literally be the center of attention.
