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WASHINGTON, Jan. 11-- Six candidates have been invited to participate in the seventh Democratic presidential primary debate next week, announced the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the hosts on Saturday. They are former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden; former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg; Senators Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren; and billionaire activist Tom Steyer. The debate, the seventh of a dozen scheduled for the Democratic Party's primary, will take place on Jan. 14 at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, to be moderated by cnn and The Des Moines Register. Biden and Sanders will stand at center stage that night, according to cnn. Warren will be to the left of Biden, and Buttigieg will be to the right of Sanders. Steyer will stand next to Warren, and Klobuchar will be next to Buttigieg. The candidates qualified because they have received 5 percent or more support in at least four polls or 7 percent or more support in two polls in early-voting states and garnered donations from at least 225,000 unique donors, criteria agreed by the DNS, cnn and The Des Moines Register. The lineup has been the smallest, whitest, and least diverse to date in this election cycle, as there are no candidates of color in it. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, a fast-rising candidate who nonetheless failed to meet polling thresholds to take part in the upcoming debate, unsuccessfully called for the DNC to commission more polling to make up for a lack of surveys over the holidays. | 
