Later this year, the Democratic presidential candidates will appear at an LGBTQ+ forum hosted by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). The HRC is hosting the presidential forum on October 10, 2019, the night before National Coming Out Day, in Royce Hall at UCLA.
HRC has yet to announce the format of the forum or who will be moderating, but it will focus specifically on LGBTQ+ issues.
Candidates will be able to qualify for the HRC forum by getting at least 1 percent support in three different national polls and getting over 65,000 donors from 20 different states, which are the same requirements for getting into the other primary debates.
This is the first HRC-hosted forum since 2007, which included candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson. That forum also centered on LGBTQ+ rights and was broadcast on Logo. It was moderated by Margaret Carlson and the panelists were HRC’S Joe Solmonese, New York Daily News editorial page writer and In The Life reporter Jonathan Capehart and singer Melissa Etheridge.
According to HRC, “on Election Day 2018, exit polling showed that more than seven million LGBTQ voters—six percent of total turnout—cast ballots, making the difference in key races from coast to coast.”
“Millions of LGBTQ people will have their rights on the ballot in 2020—but today we are also a powerful voting bloc that will help determine the outcome. We’re excited to partner with UCLA and create an opportunity to hear candidates’ agendas for moving equality forward,” HRC President Chad Griffin says in a press release.
