By Jim Ellis
June 10, 2019 — The Politico publication ran a story late last week detailing building friction between the Democratic National Committee and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a late-entering Democratic presidential candidate, over the committee leaders apparently axing the western governor from the first debate forum coming later this month.
The source of controversy is the party leadership contending that Gov. Bullock, who looked to have qualified for the debate under the outlined criteria, now has not. Instead, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is in position to capture the 20th and final debate podium for the upcoming June 26-27 candidate forums from Miami.
As we have previously reported, the qualifications the party leaders have placed upon the candidates require them to either build a fundraising organization of 65,000 donors, with a minimum of 200 coming from 20 states, or score one percent support in at least three surveys from eight designated pollsters.
Gov. Bullock appeared to have met the polling requirement. He exceeded the one percent threshold in the ABC/Washington Post survey in January. But, the DNC is now disallowing this particular poll, and the action probably eliminates him from the debate.
Their reasoning is that the ABC/Post poll asked an open-ended presidential ballot test question — that is, where the names of the candidates are not read, but the respondents must voluntarily state a name. This type of question is usually employed to test hard name identification and candidate strength.
