2020 Democratic candidates will formally debate LGBTQ issues this October

The Democratic presidential candidates will appear at an LGBTQ forum later this year. The Human Rights Campaign will host a presidential debate on October 10, 2019, at UCLA – the eve of National Coming Out Day.

Candidates will be able to qualify for the forum by getting at least 1% support in three different national polls and getting over 65,000 donors from 20 different states, the same as the requirements for getting into the other primary debates.

The first openly gay politician to run for president, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg from Indiana, has said he’s met the donor threshold to be included in the debates.

Exit polls in 2016 found that 78% of LGBT people voted for Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, up from the 70% that voted for Barack Obama in 2008, so LGBT people are a loyal Democratic constituency that the primary candidates should want to appeal to.