NBC announces debate lineups for initial Democratic debates on June 26th and 27th

Fol­low­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee’s announce­ment that twen­ty can­di­dates have qual­i­fied for the ini­tial Demo­c­ra­t­ic debates, NBC has unveiled its debate line­ups. Each con­sists of ten can­di­dates who will share a stage on a dif­fer­ent night at the end of the month in Miami.

Here are the lineups.

NIGHT ONE, Wednes­day, June 26:

• Cory Book­er
• Bill de Blasio
• Julián Cas­tro
• John Delaney
• Tul­si Gabbard
• Jay Inslee
• Amy Klobuchar
• Beto O’Rourke
• Tim Ryan
• Eliz­a­beth Warren

NIGHT TWO, Thurs­day, June 27:

• Michael Ben­net
• Joe Biden
• Pete Buttigieg
• Kirsten Gilli­brand
• Kamala Har­ris
• John Hick­en­loop­er
• Bernie Sanders
• Eric Swal­well
• Mar­i­anne Williamson
• Andrew Yang

The two top polling can­di­dates — Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders — will appear onstage togeth­er on the sec­ond night.

They’ll be joined by Sen­a­tor Kamala Har­ris and May­or Pete Buttigieg, who are also in the top tier of the large field, accord­ing to polling averages.

The only can­di­date cur­rent­ly polling in dou­ble dig­its who will appear on the stage the first night is Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth Warren.

Each debate line­up includes at least three Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors (yes, 7% of the Unit­ed States Sen­ate is cur­rent­ly run­ning for Pres­i­dent), one gov­er­nor or for­mer gov­er­nor, and one may­or. Each also includes at least one Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and one can­di­date who present­ly holds no elect­ed office.

Gov­er­nor Steve Bul­lock of Mon­tana did not qual­i­fy for the ini­tial debates, but he could qual­i­fy in July. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Seth Moul­ton of Mass­a­chu­setts also failed to make the cut, prompt­ing many polit­i­cal observers on cable tele­vi­sion to sug­gest he end his cam­paign, which the evi­dence sug­gests is get­ting no traction.

NBC has tapped five — yes, five — mod­er­a­tors for the debates: Savan­nah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Mad­dow and José Diaz-Balart. Both debates will take place at the Adri­enne Arsht Cen­ter for the Per­form­ing Arts in Miami.

Three chan­nels will car­ry the debates: NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo.

Each debate will begin at 6 PM Pacif­ic Time and con­clude two hours lat­er. That’s four hours of live prime­time pro­gram­ming devot­ed to a dis­cus­sion of Demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and pol­i­cy direc­tions on back-to-back nights.