Cut From the Debate? It Doesn’t Mean a Candidate Can’t Matter

The Democratic National Committee is soon expected to announce the 20 candidates who qualified for the party’s first presidential debates. One candidate seems likely to come especially close but fall short: Steve Bullock, the governor of Montana.

Mr. Bullock is set to miss the cut — along with Seth Moulton and Wayne Messam — in part because he failed to reach 1 percent of the vote in three qualifying national or early state polls. …

Yet Mr. Bullock’s low support in the polls doesn’t preclude the possibility that he’ll play a meaningful role in the race. His exclusion illustrates the challenge of using polls at this early stage to make sense of the race, let alone to decide whom to include in a debate. CONT.

Nate Cohn, New York Times