Gabbard says she will attend debate after threatening boycott

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) on Monday said she will attend this week’s Democratic debate after earlier suggesting she might boycott the event over perceived unfair treatment.

“I just want to let you know that I will be attending the debate,” Gabbard said in an email to supporters ahead of the Tuesday debate in Westerville, Ohio.

{mosads}Gabbard met the qualifying criteria for this week’s debate after falling short for the previous one in September. Last week, she said she was considering skipping it over lack of transparency in qualification criteria, saying the party’s leaders “are trying to hijack the entire election process.”

“In this 2020 election, the [Democratic National Committee] DNC and corporate media are rigging the election again, but this time against the American people in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada,” Gabbard said in a statement Thursday.

On Friday, she doubled down on the comments, saying that the DNC’s criteria posed a “very serious threat to our democracy.”

Gabbard has also disputed the process by which the DNC certifies which polls determine whether a candidate meets its qualifying polling thresholds, saying the DNC has excluded polls that are more favorable to her that she claims are more accurate.