We’re watching the ninth 2020 Democratic presidential debate, held in Nevada. Join us!

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the ninth Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2020 cycle.

NPI staff are watch­ing and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it pro­gress­es, which will take place over the course of sev­er­al hours in Las Vegas, Neva­da. NBC/MSNBC and Tele­mu­n­do are the media part­ners for this DNC-sanc­tioned debate, the last debate before the Feb­ru­ary 22nd Neva­da Demo­c­ra­t­ic caucuses.

Here’s how you can tune in:

The debate will air live on NBC News and MSNBC. It will stream on NBC and MSNBC web and mobile plat­forms, and on The Neva­da Inde­pen­den­t’s web­site. It will air live in Span­ish on Uni­ver­so, as well as the Noti­cias Tele­mu­n­do mobile app and web­site and Noti­cias Tele­mu­ndo’s Face­book page, accord­ing to NBC.

And here’s the mod­er­a­tor lineup:

NBC’s Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Hal­lie Jack­son, Noti­cias Tele­mu­ndo’s Vanes­sa Hauc and The Neva­da Inde­pen­den­t’s Jon Ral­ston will mod­er­ate the event.

Tonight’s line­up of six can­di­dates is the first to fea­ture Michael Bloomberg.

• For­mer May­or Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana
• U.S. Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders vof Vermont
• U.S. Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren of Massachusetts
• For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden
• U.S. Sen­a­tor Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
• Bil­lion­aire (and for­mer New York May­or) Michael Bloomberg

The qual­i­fi­ca­tion thresh­olds for this debate were as follows:

Del­e­gate Threshold

To meet the Del­e­gate Thresh­old for the Neva­da Debate, can­di­dates must have been allo­cat­ed at least one pledged del­e­gate to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion (“Nation­al Con­ven­tion Del­e­gate”) from either:

1. the state of Iowa, based on the results of the Feb­ru­ary 3rd, 2020 Iowa cau­cus­es, as report­ed and cal­cu­lat­ed by the Iowa Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty; or
2. the state of New Hamp­shire, based on the results of the Feb­ru­ary 11, 2020 pri­ma­ry elec­tion, as cal­cu­lat­ed and report­ed by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

Polling Thresh­old

To meet the Polling Thresh­old for the Neva­da Debate, can­di­dates must meet either the “Four-Poll Thresh­old” or the “Ear­ly State Polling Thresh­old” as described below:

• Four-Poll Thresh­old. Receive 10% or more sup­port in at least four polls (which may be nation­al polls, or sin­gle-state polls of South Car­oli­na, and/or Neva­da) meet­ing the Qual­i­fy­ing Poll Cri­te­ria described below. To meet the Four-Poll Thresh­old, each one of a candidate’s four qual­i­fy­ing polls must be spon­sored by dif­fer­ent Qual­i­fy­ing Poll Spon­sors, or if by the same Qual­i­fy­ing Poll Spon­sor, must be in dif­fer­ent geo­graph­i­cal areas.
• Ear­ly State Polling Thresh­old. Receive 12% or more sup­port in two sin­gle-state polls in South Car­oli­na and/or Neva­da that meet the Qual­i­fy­ing Poll Cri­te­ria described below. To meet the Ear­ly State Polling Thresh­old, any candidate’s two qual­i­fy­ing polls may be in the same or dif­fer­ent geo­graph­i­cal areas and from the same or dif­fer­ent Qual­i­fy­ing Poll Sponsors.

Our live cov­er­age begins below.