The 5 candidates not in the first debate

Tonight is the first of two debates branded as the first debate of the Democratic Presidential Primary season. Tonight’s debate, from 9:00–11:00PM on NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo will feature ten candidates. The first night will feature Senator Cory Booker, Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Representative Beto O’ Rourke, Senator Amy Klobuchar, former representative John Delaney, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Representative Tim Ryan, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Jay Inslee. The second night will feature Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Kamala Harris, former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Michael Bennet, author Marianne Williamson, Representative Eric Swalwell, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, and Governor John Hickenlooper.

There have already been ten forums, not sponsored by the DNC, on topics ranging from how the economy is affecting rural Americans, to issues affecting women of color, to how the economy is affecting low-income Americans, to immigration reform, to how to expand economic opportunity for Black Americans.

In addition to the 12 debates currently scheduled running through April 2020 there are currently three more forums planned: One on public schools, one on issues affecting Asian-Pacific Americans, and one on LGBT rights.

But here are the five candidates you won’t see on the debate stage tonight or tomorrow night.

Governor Steve Bullock, who announced his presidential campaign on May 14 had trouble placing in the polls in the month leading up to the cut off for debate qualification.

While the Bullock campaign contends that they qualified to be in the first debate, one of the three polls they submitted has remained in question. The poll in question was an open-ended poll from ABC/The Washington Post.

Though some consider Bullock a “red state” Democrat, the former Attorney General of Montanta succeeded another Democrat, Brian Schweitzer, who took office in 2005, which means that the state has had Democratic governors for over a decade. The state, which also elected Democrat Jon Tester to the Senate in 2007 and previously had been represented by Max Baucus for 36 years until he was appointed the U.S. Ambassador to China, seems a purple state at best.

Bullock’s claim to fame in the crowded field is that he won in a “Trump State.” From Bullock’s campaign website: “As the only candidate who has won a Trump state, Governor Bullock has been able to bridge partisan divides his entire career. In the same year that Trump won the state by 20 points, Bullock won by 4.”

Governor Bullock’s “One Big Idea” is to get big money out of politics, and it seems to be the only plank on his platform at the moment.

Bullock has not yet participated in any of the forums.

Bullock will be in the 2nd debate on either July 30 or July 31.

Second on the list is Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam. Messam launched his campaign on March 28. Unlike the other mayor’s in the race, Messam has had trouble placing in the polls.

Messam has served as mayor since 2015. He’d previously served in the Miramar City Commission from 2011–2015.

Messam is focused on South Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada and California.

Messam’s priorities include: Student debt, gun reform, education, healthcare, women’s health, climate change, criminal justice, immigration, voting rights, and foreign policy, among others.

Messam calls for the cancellation of all federal and private student loans, claiming that, “This one-time policy would boost the annual GDP between $86 billion and $108 billion and creation 1 million to 1.5 million new jobs each year.” For this, the Messam campaign cites a publication from the Levy Institute.

Messam’s campaign believes that complete debt cancellation would be “relatively straightforward” for a majority of cases, because the U.S. Department of Education owns “about 95 percent” of America’s student loan debt.

This plan aims to cancel private student loan debt as well. Citing the same Levy Institute report as before, the Messam campaign believes this plan would free up an average of $400 a month per “student borrowers.”

Messam’s campaign website calls the war on drugs a “failure,” noting that it has “ruined thousands of lives, especially in communities of color.” Messam wants to work to eliminate the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Messam wants to reform immigration “from top to bottom” to ensure that “our country is not only safer, but also more inclusive of, immigrants.” He wants to first “provide a pathway to citizenship for American Dreamers,” and then “offer comprehensive immigration reform that re-establishes a fair and orderly process.”

You can read more about Messam’s student policy and all of his policies at his campaign website.

Messam participated in the Poor People’s Campaign Presidential Forum on June 17.

Third on the list is former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel. Gravel has not met the polling requirements in any polls sanctioned by the DNC, however, as of June 1 he had received donations from 40,000 donors.

I wrote more extensively about Senator Gravel here.

Gravel has not yet participated in any of the forums.

Fourth on the list is Massachusetts’s Representative Seth Moulton. Representative Moulton launched his campaign on April 22.

Moulton entered electoral politics in 2014, and has been serving as a Representative from Massachusetts since 2015. Moulton’s claim to fame may be his opposition to Speaker Pelosi’s speakership. Moulton, a member of the New Democrat Coalition, along with fellow presidential candidate Tim Ryan, among others, had opposed Pelosi’s speakership.

Moulton, a veteran, lists as two planks of his platform, “Foreign Policy and National Security” and “National Service Education Guarantee.” In addition to putting people to work and sending them to school through the “National Service Education Guarantee,” plank of his platform, he also wants to invest in infrastructure and his website vaguely states of education, “And secondary education, whether it’s traditional college, community college, or vocational school, should be within reach for every kid in America.” This doesn’t make it clear if Moulton supports free higher education.

Moulton supports a public option for healthcare and wants to make mental health care a “routine part” of everyone’s healthcare. He wants to fund yearly mental health screenings for high schoolers in the US and wants to introduce “mental health training” into physical education curriculum in high schools. He also wants to establish 511 as a “National Mental Health Crisis Hotline.”

Moulton also supports the Green New Deal as a plank of his platform. The final plank on Moulton’s platform is a “New Voting Rights Act” which would include automatic voter registration nationwide, abolishing the electoral college, Statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, making Election Day a national holiday, restoring voting rights to felons who have “paid their debt to society,” ending gerrymandering, putting an “end” to gerrymandering, putting an “end” to voter suppression, giving paid time off for all Americans to vote and nationwide rank choice voting.

Moulton participated in the We Decide: 2020 Election Membership Forum sponsored by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund on June 22.

Fifth on this list, noted and added right before I originally was getting ready to publish, is former Representative Joe Sestak. Representative Sestak announced his campaign on June 22.

Check out Representative Sestak’s announcement, platform and campaign website here.

Sestak has not yet participated in any forums.

If you’d like to see any of these candidates in the debates on July 30 and 31, donate to their campaigns by July 16.