Some are accusing the media of going easy on white candidates. There are also arguments that late-arriving billionaire candidates are drowning out other campaigns.

“It’s very troubling and I’m worried that Democrats might be setting themselves up for failure,” said Cornell William Brooks, a former NAACP president and current director at the William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at Harvard University.

“The demographic shift in this country, which is most pronounced in the Democratic Party, is toward a younger, more progressive and more diverse electorate. We could be looking at a debate stage that’s far different from that. When you have more billionaires than black people on stage, how are you supposed to sell that?”