Andrew Yang Becomes 9th Democrat to Qualify for the Next Debate

The entrepreneur and former tech executive Andrew Yang became the ninth Democratic presidential candidate to qualify for the next debates after a new poll of Iowa voters released Thursday showed him earning 2 percent support.

Mr. Yang had already met the Democratic National Committee’s other debate-qualification threshold by having drawn donations from more than 130,000 people. The new poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa, conducted by Monmouth University, was the fourth qualifying poll to show him with 2 percent support.

Candidates are required to both have 130,000 unique donors and register at least 2 percent support in four polls in order to make the cut for the next debates, scheduled for Sept. 12 and 13 in Houston. They have until Aug. 28 to reach those benchmarks.

In qualifying for the third round of debates, Mr. Yang joins former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., Senator Kamala Harris of California, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The former housing secretary Julián Castro has also surpassed 130,000 donors and needs to garner 2 percent support in just one more poll to qualify.

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The Monmouth poll released Thursday had Mr. Biden in the lead with 28 percent of likely Iowa caucusgoers selecting him as their first choice for the nomination. Ms. Warren finished next with 19 percent support, followed by Ms. Harris with 11 percent and Mr. Sanders with 9 percent.

While Mr. Biden’s support in the August poll was about the same as it was in a similar survey conducted in April, Ms. Warren was up 12 percentage points, Ms. Harris was up four points and Mr. Sanders was down seven points.

The poll was conducted Aug. 1 to 4 and surveyed 401 Iowa voters who are likely to attend the Democratic presidential caucuses. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The former hedge fund investor turned impeachment activist Tom Steyer, who entered the race a month ago and plans to spend millions of dollars of his own money to help fund his campaign, earned 3 percent in the Monmouth poll. It was his strongest finish in a debate-qualifying poll and puts him just one poll result shy of meeting the D.N.C.’s threshold. Though reaching 130,000 donors will be difficult in such a short amount of time, Mr. Steyer’s ability to spend large sums on advertisements could help him amass new donors relatively quickly.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York also enjoyed her best finish in a qualifying poll so far, earning 2 percent support in one for the first time since she officially kicked off her campaign in March. The poll result comes on the heels of a generally well-received debate performance for Ms. Gillibrand, which included a particularly memorable line: “The first thing that I’m going to do when I’m president is I’m going to Clorox the Oval Office.”

Ms. Gillibrand’s campaign recently announced that it had crossed the 100,000-donor mark, which puts her in striking distance of meeting one qualification benchmark. But in order to get on the stage in Houston, she will also need to earn 2 percent support in at least three more polls before the end of the month.

Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii has crossed the 130,000-donor mark, but she, like Ms. Gillibrand, has only one qualifying poll so far.

Mr. Yang’s debate performance last week appeared to give his campaign a fund-raising boost. A campaign spokesman said that in the four days after he debated, he raised more than $1 million from about 38,000 people, the vast majority of them new donors. By comparison, the Yang campaign raised $2.8 million over the three months ending June 30.

“The country heard my message and is ready to talk about real solutions to gun violence, the new realities of the American economy, and how we measure our health and success as a nation,” Mr. Yang said in a statement on Thursday. “I’m excited to have those conversations in Houston and throughout the 2020 election.”