The Democratic National Committee has changed the rules for the upcoming debate scheduled for March 15 in Arizona. Under the new rules, a candidate must get the backing of a minimum of 20% of the total pledged delegates of the party. The previous regulations only required that a candidate has at least one delegate to qualify. The changes in the rules mean that Tulsi Gabbard will not be in the debate stage and that it would just be a faceoff between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Gabbard would have been able to qualify for the debate if the old rules were to be followed since she was able to get a delegate from American Samoa.

After the February 29 primary in South Carolina, candidates have been suspending their campaign. The latest was Elizabeth Warren, who was one of the leading candidates when the campaigning started but has seen her chances slowly erode until her dismal performance on Super Tuesday during which she lost even in her home state of Massachusetts. She has since suspended her campaign, blaming sexism for the fact that her campaign was largely a failure, and she has not endorsed any of the remaining candidates.

Former candidates Klobuchar and Buttigieg have come out in support of Biden, who is now on a race for the nomination against Sanders. The former Vice President is leading with the number of delegates, but there is a chance that the old socialist from Vermont can win the nomination.

Meanwhile, Gabbard has largely been ignored by the DNC and the mainstream media. It seems that there has been a steady attempt to exclude her from getting time in the spotlight. Plus, she has been accused of ridiculous things. Hillary Clinton even went so far to say that the Russians were pushing Gabbard as a candidate. In return, she filed a defamation lawsuit against Clinton because of that statement.

The DNC has tried to exclude Gabbard from the debate stage in the past. Some say that it is an attempt to protect some of the establishment candidates against her attacks. The fear may have some foundation as Gabbard destroyed Kamala Harris’ campaign on the debate stage back in July last year when she commented on Harris’s criminal justice record. Perhaps the DNC is scrambling now to get her disqualified as she might make former Vice President Joe Biden look more lost than usual while on the debate stage. While she may not be joining the debate, she has not quit the race, which some Democrats are overlooking.