NBC News announced the five moderators for the first Democratic presidential primary debate, set for a two-night run June 26-27: Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and José Diaz-Balart.
The two-night event, featuring 10 candidates each night, will take place at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami. In all, 20 candidates will participate in the event sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee.
The debates will air live across NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo from 9 to 11 p.m. ET each night.
Holt is anchor of NBC Nightly News and Dateline NBC; Guthrie is co-anchor of Today and NBC News’ chief legal analyst; Todd is moderator of Meet the Press and is NBC News political director; Maddow is host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC; Díaz-Balart is anchor of Noticias Telemundo and NBC Nightly News Saturday.
According to NBC News, each debate will have the same format, with Holt moderating the first hour, with Guthrie and Diaz-Balart appearing with him; Holt will also appear in the second hour, with Todd and Maddow moderating.
To qualify for the debate, candidates need to either register 1 percent support in three qualified polls or have 65,000 unique donors to their campaign, with a minimum of 200 different donors in at least 20 states. Should more than 20 candidates qualify for the debate, the Democratic National Committee will use a series of tiebreakers to determine who makes it onto the stage.
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