CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM, Los Angeles, California- The 6th Democratic primary debate on Thursday, Dec 19 in Los Angeles will go forward for the first time this year with no Blacks as U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California dropped out of the race for president this month and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey failed to make the cut among seven qualifying candidates, all of them White except businessman Andrew Yang, who is Asian-American. (Editor's note: All seven of the qualifying debate candidates have threatened to boycott the debate regarding a labor dispute at the university where the event is scheduled to occur).

The candidates meeting the increased polling and fundraising requirements set by the Democratic National Committee to debate this week  in Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University  are former vice president Joe Biden, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg,  Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar,  Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, billionaire businessman Tom Steyer, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Yang.

The absence of Booker and Harris on the debate stage is, no doubt, a loss for the Black community, Harris quitting the race even though she qualified for the sixth debate, sources saying that racism and sexim on the campaign trail were among the reasons for her departure.

Both of the junior U.S. senators fought for public policy issues for Blacks during the previous five debates on issues ranging from gun violence, racism, poverty, voting, and education, to health care, excessive force, criminal justice reform and jobs and unemployment.

A former California attorney general, Sen. Harris, 54, told supporters in an email on Dec. 3 that she was suspending her campaign because she could no longer afford the pursuit of the presidency due to a lack of money but that she will continue to fight.

“My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” said Harris, who polled as high as 22 percent and second behind Biden after the first debate after she took on Biden as fraternizing with segregationists in his years as U.S. senator and opposing public school busing.

But by the fifth debate, held last month in Atlanta, Georgia, she was polling at four percent or less.

Her departure leaves Booker, a former Newark, New Jersey mayor, as the only Black in the still crowded race to win the Democratic primary

In spite of his Booker's popularity in the Black community, Biden surpassed both Harris and Booker with Black voters' support for his candidacy at or near 80 percent, Booker's poll numbers currently just above two or three percent depending on the poll.

This week's debate, moderated by PBS and Politico, comes as the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election nears and Democrats work to unseat President Donald Trump from the White house and it is also amid an upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate against the embattled Republican president, a billionaire real estate mogul who narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the presidency in 2016.

Biden, Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg are the national front runners as the 2020 election nears, Buttigieg the front- runner for the Iowa Caucuses, though Iowa is 91 percent White.

Historically speaking, there has never been more than two Black candidates for the Democratic nomination for president on a national debate stage at one time, the last time in 2004 when former U.S. senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, and of whom lost reelection after three terms in Congress, and the Rev Al Sharpton were candidates.

Other Black candidates for the Democratic nomination over the years include the late and former New York congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress and the first Black major party candidate for president, former Rep. Barbara Jordan, also deceased and the first Black elected to the Texas senate and the first Black southern Black woman elected to Congress, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

Only one Black, among both Democrats and Republicans, has reached the status of a presidential nominee of a major American political party, that being two-term former president Barack Obama, a Democrat and the nation's first Black president.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.