As minority candidate Cory Booker dropped out of the Democrat race for president on Monday, it leaves the Democrat candidates for president in a tight spot, as their “party of inclusion” seems to be more like the party of septuagenarian, white people.
POLITICO bemoaned Booker’s departure from the race, calling the January 2020 Democrat debate “the smallest, whitest one yet.”
Candidates who will be on the debate stage include former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, businessman Tom Steyer and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
“If the DNC had only done their due diligence and commissioned polls in the early states, Andrew Yang would certainly be on the debate stage next week,” presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s campaign chief Nick Ryan said in a statement, citing what it said was internal polling data showing Yang at 5 percent in early states. “The DNC tried to run this same play in 2016, and they paid for it with a loss in the general.”
Booker cleared the donor threshold to qualify for the January debate but did not poll high enough to be included. Democrat operatives are blaming the DNC for not rigging the process to favor minority candidates.