December Democratic debate: How to watch and what you need to know

Rebecca Morin | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Electoral College vs. the popular vote, explained President Trump and President George W. Bush won the electoral vote during the election, but not the popular vote. How does the electoral college work?

WASHINGTON – In the last Democratic primary debate of the year, seven Democrats will take the stage.

The debate, hosted by PBS Newshour and Politico, will start at 8 p.m. EST, last for 2-1/2 hours and be hosted at Loyola Marymount University.

The debate comes 24 hours after the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump, and that vote will likely dominate at least part of the discussion Thursday night. And as the clock winds down to the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, candidates will try to stand out as voters prepare to head into the holiday season, ripe for political conversations with friends and family.

House members debate as impeachment vote approaches Members on both sides of the aisle debated on the House floor Wednesday as the impending impeachment vote draws near. (Dec. 18)

How to watch

TV broadcast: Local PBS stations and on CNN, CNN International and CNN en Español

Online stream: The debate will be streamed online at pbs.org/newshour, politico.com, cnn.com, on CNN's mobile app and CNNgo, on the PBS apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast and Android TV, and SiriusXM Channels 116, 454, 795. It will also be livestreamed on PBS NewsHour and Politico's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

Who's on stage

Only seven Democratic presidential candidates will be on stage Thursday out of a field of 15. The following candidates will appear, in order from left to right:

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

Former Vice President Joe Biden

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota

Entrepreneur Tom Steyer

To qualify for the December debate, candidates must have received 4% or more support in at least four polls, which include national polls or polls in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.

Candidates could also meet the polling criteria by hitting 6% support in two single-state polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.

More: Who is running for president in 2020? An interactive guide

In addition, candidates had to get at least 200,000 unique donors, with a minimum of 800 unique donors per state in at least 20 U.S. states, U.S. territories, or the District of Columbia.

Two candidates who were on the stage last month, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, didn't make the stage this time. Sen. Kamala Harris of California qualified for the debate, but dropped out earlier this month.

Labor union fights caused trouble

Several weeks before the debate, the DNC and their media partners for the debate ran into issues with their location for the event.

The DNC switched their initial location from University of California, Los Angeles to Loyola Marymount University. The move came after UCLA's union sent a letter to six campaigns calling on them to endorse a boycott of events at the university.

Less than a week before the debate, another local union, this time affiliated with Loyola, called on candidates not to cross a picket line due to union negotiations.

Unite Here Local 11, which represents 150 cooks, dishwashers, cashiers, and servers at the university, announced they were going to picket the day Thursday after stalled negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement with Sodexo, a global services company that is subcontracted by Loyola Marymount University. Local 11 called on the candidates to not cross the picket line.

All seven presidential candidates said they were not going to cross the picket line, in addition to Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez.

Local 11 and Sodexo came to a resolution Tuesday, and will no longer picket Thursday.