(CNN) The 2020 Democratic presidential field is still developing, but it's already the most diverse in modern political history.

Eight different Democratic candidates have either declared that they are running for president (and are still running) or have formed an exploratory committee, according to CNN. Four are women ( a record ), one is an Asian man (Andrew Yang), one is a Hispanic man (Julián Castro) and one is a gay man ( Pete Buttigieg ). All told, seven of the eight Democratic candidates are non-white, women or identify as LGBT, or some combination of the three.

Of those eight, six have either been a member of Congress, governor, held a cabinet position or are polling at 1% or greater in the polls.

The previous high for candidates who met this criteria for a major party nomination was five. That, of course, occurred in 2016 when Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio all sought the Republican nomination.

Before this cycle, Democrats have had at most three candidates who fit this bill. In 1972 for instance, Shirley Chisholm, Walter Fauntroy and Patsy Mink ran for the presidency. None of them had a realistic shot of winning the nomination. The 1972 record was most recently tied in 2008 when Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson all sought the Democratic nomination.

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