High-profile candidates are on track to meet the Republican National Committee’s new debate requirements for the first showdown on August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The rules require that a candidate reach 1 percent support in three national polls (or two national polls and one early-primary state poll) conducted from July 1 onwards and have 40,000 individual donors, with at least 200 donors in twenty different states. Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, who have all polled consistently over 1 percent in the past two polls, will likely qualify for the debate when the third is released. All but Pence have stated they have met the 40,000 donor threshold, according to Politico.
On Tuesday, former New Jersey governor and Trump critic Chris Christie announced that he cleared the donor requirement as well. The following day, he hit 3 percent support in the Morning Consult Poll, putting him one step closer to qualifying for the debate. “I am glad to be able to tell people tonight, Anderson, that last night we went past 40,000 unique donors in just thirty-five days,” Christie told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “There is a donor in every state in America, and we have over 200 donors in thirty-six states.”
Two national polls were released Wednesday: the aforementioned Morning Consult poll (Trump 56 percent, DeSantis 17, Pence 7, Haley 3, Scott 3, Ramaswamy 8, Christie 3, Hutchinson 1, Elder, Burgum 0) and one from the Economist/YouGov (Trump 48 percent, DeSantis 22, Pence 5, Haley 3, Scott 3, Ramaswamy 2, Christie 2, Hutchinson 0, Elder 0, Burgum 0).
Fellow anti-Trump candidate Asa Hutchinson is having a tougher time. The former governor of Arkansas told radio host Hugh Hewitt last week that he had around 5,000 donors, despite reaching the 1 percent polling threshold. “We got more work to do,” he said. “We got time to do it.” Former Texas GOP representative Will Hurd, Miami mayor Francis Suarez and conservative radio host Larry Elder are all polling below 1 percent and have yet to meet the donor requirements, according to the New York Post.
Some candidates are undertaking creative efforts to get on the debate stage. Businessman Perry Johnson is selling “I stand with Tucker” T-shirts for $1 on Facebook and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum is offering $20 gift cards in exchange for donations.
Candidates must also sign a loyalty pledge to the eventual Republican nominee if they wish to appear in the August debate. Christie suggested on CNN that he would sign it but not necessarily follow through with the promise.
“I’ll take it every bit as seriously as Donald Trump took it in 2016. We all signed the pledge in 2016,” Christie said. “At the next debate after we all signed the pledge, one of the questioners said, ‘You all signed. Would you reaffirm by raising your hand?’ And nine of us raised our hand and Donald Trump didn’t.”
Met the donor threshold, needs one more qualifying poll:
Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott, Donald Trump
