Washington (CNN) Nine Democratic presidential candidates signed a letter to Democratic National Committee leaders on Saturday urging the DNC to consider changing the debate qualifications for the January and February presidential primary debates. The candidates being excluded from the debate, the letter states, "are the ones who have helped make this year's primary field historically diverse." Entrepreneur Andrew Yang is the only person of color who qualified for next week's debate. A DNC official told CNN that despite signing the letter, a number of Democratic campaigns privately expressed their frustration to the DNC about the large debate stage and asked the DNC to "hold the line" on their thresholds. The DNC has been raising the thresholds for the contests, slowly shrinking the field of Democrats on the high-profile debate stages.

Source: CNN December 15, 2019 01:41 UTC