The event, the third NBC News debate of the 2020 election cycle, comes in the midst the early-state primary voting.
ADVERTISEMENTNBC News and MSNBC will host a Democratic presidential primary debate on Feb. 19 in Las Vegas, the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday.
The debate, which will be hosted in partnership with the Nevada Independent newspaper, will come amid the crucial early-state voting contests in the primary, occurring after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary — and just days before the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 22.
This will be the third NBC News debate of the 2020 presidential election cycle. The moderators, format, candidates, qualifications, broadcast time and the venue will all be announced at a later date.
The NBC News/MSNBC debate will air on both networks.
The DNC announced the NBC News/MSNBC debate as part of a slate of four debates, which will each occur in early-voting states in January and February.
The other debates will take place on Jan. 14 (hosted by CNN and the Des Moines Register) at Drake University, in Des Moines, Iowa; Feb. 7 (hosted by ABC, WMUR and Apple News) at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.; and on Feb. 25 (hosted by CBS News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute) at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, S.C. Twitter will also be a partner for the Feb. 25 debate in South Carolina.
The four debates announced Thursday will be the seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th of the presidential cycle.
NBC News, MSNBC and Telemundo hosted the first of the Democratic primary debates in June. The two-night, 20 candidate-event was the most watched Democratic presidential primary debate in history. MSNBC and The Washington Post co-hosted the fifth Democratic presidential primary debate in Atlanta in November.
The next Democratic presidential primary debate will take place Dec. 19 in Los Angeles and will be hosted by PBS and Politico. Seven candidates — former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), billionaire Tom Steyer and businessman Andrew Yang — have qualified.