Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang will reportedly announce a $120,000 giveaway during Thursday night’s primary debate — a move that he left as a surprise but said would be “unprecedented,” Politico reports.
Yang’s campaign will randomly select 10 families for the giveaway and award them a total of $120,000 over the next year, with each family getting $1,000 per month, as the team pilots a program for the White House hopeful’s universal basic income proposal, according to Politico.
Yang will reportedly announce the giveaway during his opening statement, and people will be able to enter the raffle over the next week.
In the days leading up to the debate, intrigue surrounded Yang over his “big” and “unprecedented” debate promise that he and his team wouldn’t reveal, with the mystery spurring a wide variety of theories on what the surprise was going to be.
{mosads}#YangsDebateSurprise began to trend on Twitter on Thursday night.
Politico notes that while many presidential candidates promise financial benefits for voters if they get elected, few contenders promise random people cash prizes in advance of going to the polls.
Yang — who, in recent weeks, has been getting more attention and has seen higher polling numbers — has centered his campaign around a promise to give every American adult $1,000 a month, a version of universal basic income, and has defended the proposal as a response to rising automation, which he argues will continue to displace thousands of jobs.