PBS & Politico Announce Moderators For Next Democratic Debate

Ted Johnson

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Judy Woodruff, Amna Nawaz and Yamiche Alcindor from PBS NewsHour and Tim Alberta from Politico will moderate the next Democratic debate, to be held on Dec. 19 in Los Angeles.

Woodruff is the anchor and managing editor of NewsHour, Nawaz is the senior national correspondent and Alcindor is the White House correspondent. Alberta is chief political correspondent at Politico. PBS and Politico are sponsoring the debate, and CNN will provide a simulcast.

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The sixth debate will take place at Loyola Marymount University. Candidates are facing a new threshold to qualify. They need to show that they have drawn at least 200,000 unique donors and that they have hit at least 4% in four national or state polls, or 6% in early state polls. Six candidates have so far reached that threshold, according to NBC News. They include Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris.

The debate also will be the first Democratic primary debate to be held in Los Angeles since Jan. 31, 2008, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton squared off at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

Sara Just, the executive producer of NewsHour, said that Woodruff “has incomparable experience moderating debates and demonstrates her fairness in probing interviews every day on the PBS NewsHour. “I’m delighted that she will be joined on the debate stage by such accomplished and even handed journalists, including NewsHour’s Amna Nawaz and Yamiche Alcindor.”

Carrie Budoff Brown, the editor of Politico, said, “Tim Alberta is one of the sharpest and most insightful reporters of his generation and will bring a thoughtful, unique, and fair-minded approach to the moderating panel.”

There had been reports earlier this month that the DNC objected to Politico‘s choice of Alberta as one of the moderators, as he was formerly with the conservative publication National Review and spent a big chunk of his career focused on Republican politics.

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