Just because they aren’t on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all day doesn’t mean they aren’t running for president.

As the Democratic National Committee awaits delegate counts to see who will end up running against President Trump this November, 21 lesser-known presidential candidates will take a debate stage next month in Chicago.

The Free & Equal Elections Foundation will host the March 4 “Open Presidential Debate,” which will be live-streamed online at FreeAndEqual.org.

“When record numbers of Americans support opening up the U.S. political system to more voices and choices, it’s disappointing that the Republican and Democratic Parties work so hard to shut them out,” said Free & Equal founder Christina Tobin, referencing a recent USA Today survey of 1,548 Americans in which 65% said they’d support “making it easier for third-party and independent candidates to run for office.”

“We feel the time is right to create an inspiring cross-partisan dialogue that can address the important issues facing U.S. voters,” Tobin said.

Not only will the debate include candidates from both major political parties as well as the Libertarian and Independent parties, it will also include members of the Life and Liberty Party, American Solidarity Party, Green Party and Transhumanist Party.

“By moving beyond false binary choices of liberal-versus-conservative, Democrat-vs-Republican, we can start to dig deeper into a more meaningful political debate,” Tobin said.

Among the candidates confirmed for participation in the debate:

• Zoltan Istvan, running as a Republican with a decidedly transhumanist platform. Transhumanism — the movement to upgrade human bodies with technology — coincides with another of Istvan’s campaign planks: universal basic income, which he argues should be granted in the form of providing federal land dividends to American citizens. Istvan’s position is that widespread automation will challenge the capitalistic system as human labor becomes obsolete.

• Vermin Supreme, a performance artist running as a Libertarian and espousing the Libertarian philosophy of the individual’s sovereignty over his or her own life. “Through satire and humor, I present real issues with fantastical context, in-depth analysis, and a dose of much-needed humor in the political sphere. With thought provoking activism, I stand against the tyrannical duopoly, the violent police state, and all forms of overreaching government,” Supreme states on his website.

• Brian Carroll, the American Solidarity Party’s candidate, blends several of the major political parties’ issues, advocating as a pro-life candidate who supports “distributism,” a middle ground between capitalism and socialism, and who “believes America’s role of global policing must stop,” according to his campaign website.

For a full list of debate candidates and links to their websites, see FreeAndEqual.org/presidential-debate-2020.

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