WASHINGTON (CNN) — Rep. Tulsi Gabbard called on her fellow 2020 presidential contenders, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, to stand with her in pressuring the Democratic National Committee to allow her to participate in the upcoming March debate.
Gabbard, the only woman left seeking the Democratic nomination, has only earned two pledged delegates so far — making it virtually impossible for her to participate in the upcoming Arizona debate hosted by CNN and Univision.
After Super Tuesday, the DNC raised the criteria for the March 15 Democratic debate with candidates needing to have won at least 20% of the total number of pledged delegates allocated across all the past primaries and caucuses.
Gabbard lashed out on Twitter Friday night in messages directed at Biden and Sanders — the top two candidates in the race.
“I’m sure you would agree that our Democratic nominee should be a person who will stand up for what is right. So I ask that you have the courage to do that now in the face of the DNC’s effort to keep me from participating in the debates,” Gabbard wrote in a tweet.
In a separate tweet, the Hawaii Democrat accused the DNC of “arbitrarily” changing the debate qualifications in a “transparent effort” to keep her off the debate stage.
CNN has reached out to the DNC for reaction to Gabbard’s tweets.
Biden’s campaign declined to comment on her remarks, and the campaigns for Sanders and Gabbard did not immediately respond to comment.
Gabbard, who picked up two delegates from the US territory of American Samoa, appeared to get support on Twitter from two former 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang, who is currently a CNN contributor.
On Super Tuesday, DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa tweeted that there were two more Democratic debates and that “of course the threshold will go up.”
“The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has,” she wrote.
Gabbard has been critical before of the DNC’s polling requirements to qualify for debates.
Even though she had qualified, Gabbard threatened to boycott the October debate in Ohio, but ultimately decided to participate. Gabbard said she would also skip the December debate in California, even if she had met the requirements. The last debate she qualified for was November’s debate in Georgia.
Gabbard is still running — even after the field winnowed down this past week and she has not polled above 1% in recent national surveys.
She has vowed to stay in the presidential race until the Democratic National Convention in July, according to Business Insider.
