The third
Democratic debate of the 2020
election season is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday night at
Texas Southern University, a historically black university in Houston, Texas.While the summer's previous two debates had to be split into two-night events in order to accommodate all the qualifiers, only 10 candidates met the DNC's polling and donor thresholds for the three-hour event on Thursday. On stage will be former Vice President Joe Biden; Sens.
Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), and Kamala Harris (Calif.); South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; entrepreneur Andrew Yang; former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro. You can see their podium placement here.Many other candidates who are still in the running are missing from the stage, including former hedge fund investor Tom Steyer, who has qualified for the October debate, as well as author Marianne Williamson and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom were among the most googled candidates after the July debates but failed to reach the polling threshold of 2 percent for September. Other candidates, including
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and
Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee, dropped out of the race after failing to qualify for Thursday night's debate.George Stephanopoulos, David Muir, Linsey Davis, and Jorge Ramos are set to moderate the event, with all 10 participants having been sternly warned to watch their language live on air (looking at you, Beto).Watch the debate on ABC or Univision, or stream it live below. You can additionally follow all of The Week's coverage here.