Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has openly criticized the Democratic presidential debate rules for disqualifying him. | William Campbell-Corbis/Getty Images 2020 elections Steve Bullock makes other plans for debate night

Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, after failing to qualify for the first Democratic presidential debates, announced on Tuesday morning that he would be participating in locally televised town halls in Iowa and New Hampshire on the days of the dueling events next week.

Bullock will appear June 26 on Iowa’s WHO-TV with Dave Price, and June 27 on New Hampshire’s WMUR with Adam Sexton. The appearances will be televised ahead of the debates in Miami rather than concurrently.


Bullock and his campaign have been hustling to turn his debate-outcast status into an advantage, with a round of free media coverage prompted by his willingness to attack the Democratic National Committee for its rules on polling and donor thresholds.

“DNC is saying Governor Bullock doesn’t qualify for the debates. That’s horses**t,” one Montana voter said in a campaign web ad released last Friday.

Bullock did not enter the race until mid-May and was virtually unknown nationally, making it difficult to reach 1 percent in three qualifying polls or collect 65,000 donors. Twenty other Democrats met the threshold and will appear in the debates.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez has defended the rules, which the committee laid out in February. “We gave folks a fair shake,” Perez recently said on MSNBC. “They had a lot of time. A 1 percent bar, I think, is a fair bar. It’s hard to get a lower bar than 1 percent.”

Bullock says he entered late because he needed to navigate his final legislative session (Montana’s Legislature meets every other year), which included extending the expansion of Medicaid. “If I had to choose between chasing 100,000 donors or getting healthcare for 100,000 Montanans — well, that’s the easiest decision I’ll ever have to make,” Bullock said in a statement when he didn’t make the debate.

Another Democratic candidate blocked from the first debates, Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, has made different debate-night plans, announcing that he is going to Miami anyway next week.

“We’re going to do some press around it to share my story,” he told Fox News .