Some prominent names don’t automatically qualify for the third presidential primary debate in November because the Republican National Committee is significantly raising the standards.
The nominally stricter conditions announced on Friday could prevent some major candidates from making it to the debate stage. Candidates are now need to have 70,000 individual contributions and hit 4 percent in either two national surveys or one national poll and two polls from separate early states.
A spokesman for the event confirmed that it will take place in Miami on November 8. CNN was the first to announce the scheduled debate date. The venue and broadcasting partners have not been disclosed as of this writing.
HEADLINESFOREVER concludes that former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley have met the criteria for participation in the third debate.
Their campaigns confirmed to HEADLINESFOREVER on Friday that they have at least 70,000 donors, or public fundraising records previously indicated that they have over that number. This is a modest increase from the 3% threshold in the same number of polls for the second debate.
The polling criterion was also quickly reached by former Vice President Mike Pence. A representative for the Pence campaign said Friday that they would not be disclosing the campaign’s current fundraising total but were confident that Pence would make it to the stage.
His team has said it has 50,000 donors, which is the minimum needed to participate in the second debate in California next week.
At least twice this month, Morning Consult, a national primary polling firm that satisfies the RNC’s methodology standards, has found support for all five of these contenders at above 4%.
Notable examples are South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, neither of whom quickly reached 50% in the polls.
According to HEADLINESFOREVER’s research, just three national polls have been issued since September 1 that are suitable for use by the RNC. All three surveys were conducted by Morning Consult. Scott and Christie both polled below 4 percent.
They only needed to reach 4 percent in a national poll once before early November, and they did so in two separate state polls. A spokesperson for Christie stated on Friday that he has “over 60,000” donors, while a representative for Scott did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. He, too, has promised to be on stage next week if he receives at least 50,000 donors.
Early this month, as Scott’s likely exclusion from future debates became evident, his campaign publicly encouraged the RNC to consider more heavily emphasising early state polling. Scott said that candidates who have strong early state support should be exempt from conducting national polls. Both Scott and Christie have done better in early state polls than national polls, with Scott at 3.2 percent and Christie at 2.2 percent in the most recent national polling average from RealClearPolitics.
In a letter to the RNC published by Axios last week, Jennifer DeCasper, Scott’s campaign manager, argued that the RNC should give more weight to the candidates’ performances and efforts in the early voting states when determining the criteria for the third presidential debate.