CNN
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Donald Trump has yet to commit to the first Republican presidential primary debate in August – but some of the former president’s most vocal critics within the party’s 2024 field are still working to qualify for the stage.
The race to meet the 40,000-odd donor threshold set by the Republican National Committee as the minimum to qualify for the first debate — in addition to polling requirements and a commitment to support the incoming GOP nominee — is on. in a showdown that could be the best chance for low-polling candidates to break out of the group seeking to prevent Trump from winning a third consecutive presidential nomination.
The threshold, which also requires at least 200 unique contributors from 20 or more states and territories, is a test of candidates’ ability to appeal to donors across the board. in the United States.
Several candidates and their aides say they have reached the donor threshold, including Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former United Nations ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Less popular candidates try shady, rule-breaking methods to increase their donation totals. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum exchanged a $20 gift card for a $1 campaign contribution. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s super PAC is offering entries into a free college tuition sweepstakes in exchange for contributions to his campaign.
But the biggest question ahead of the Aug. 23 showdown on Fox News is whether some of Trump’s top critics — including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Texas Rep. Will Hurd – will qualify for the stage.
Although they’ve raised big sums in the past, and Burgum has plenty of personal wealth to spend in the race, some candidates lack the low-dollar conservative donor base cultivated by candidates like Trump and DeSantis. And the late entrances of Pence and Burgum further complicated their paths to the debate, which was held in Milwaukee.
Pence, in a Tuesday interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” indicated that he has not yet reached the donor threshold.
“You bet we’ll be in the debate stage. We’re working every day to get to that threshold,” Pence said. “I’m sure we’ll go there.”
Still, the paltry second-quarter fundraising of $1.2 million Pence’s campaign announced Friday underscored how far the former vice president had to go to take on his top rivals.
Pence — who has often joked on the campaign trail that he has debated Trump privately several times — said he hoped his former ticket mate decided to take the stage.
“I’m looking forward to being on the debate stage in late August, and I’m looking forward to squaring off,” Pence said.
Hutchinson said Friday on “CNN This Morning” that he has yet to reach 40,000 donors but believes he will eventually hit that mark.
“It’s just a question of how quickly we can get there, but we want to be at the debate stage,” he said.
The former Arkansas governor has been one of the most vocal critics of the RNC’s debate eligibility rules, pushing back for weeks against the minimum donor threshold.
Hutchinson said Friday that some of his fellow candidates’ inventive gambits to attract the necessary donors “illustrate how silly the whole concept is. They’re telling campaigns you have to reach this limits to make sure you get 40,000 donors. You can do that with your rhetoric and piss people off, you can do that with gimmicks, and so we have to do what we have to do to get there.
Hurd does not seem to have reached the minimum donor threshold. “The full intent is to meet donor and polling thresholds,” a campaign aide said Wednesday.
Burgum, a wealthy former software executive, is offering $20 in so-called “Biden economic relief cards” in the form of Visa or Mastercard gift cards to 50,000 donors who give at least $1. A request on Tuesday described it as a “better deal than anything you’ve seen during Amazon Prime Day.”
Burgum’s campaign on Friday announced an $11.7 million fundraising haul in the second quarter, but $10.2 million of the candidate’s own money.
Perry Johnson, the little-known Michigan businessman, once sold “I stand with Tucker” T-shirts supporting the fired Fox News opinion host for $1.
A super PAC backing Suarez on Thursday launched what it calls “Francis Free College Tuition” — asking for a $1 contribution that goes to the candidate’s campaign to enter a sweepstakes that will offer the winner a year’s worth of tuition. in college up to $15,000.
Suarez, unlike many other GOP candidates still racing to meet the donor threshold to qualify for the debate, is upholding the RNC’s rules.
“I think there should be a minimum standard because time is of the essence,” Suarez said Wednesday on “CNN This Morning.” “I think the Republican Party is trying to set a pretty low bar, and they’re trying to create a diverse candidate pool so that people have options.”
Ramaswamy’s campaign says he has met the donor threshold – but his campaign recently launched a program to pay grassroots fundraisers 10% of the money they raise.
Whether Christie will reach the donor threshold is a major question but one he settled on Wednesday night.
“I’m happy to be able to tell people tonight, Anderson, that last night we passed 40,000 unique donors in just 35 days,” Christie told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “AC360.”
Scott’s campaign also announced Wednesday that it surpassed the 40,000 donor threshold, with a $6.1 million second quarter fundraising haul. Scott, a prolific fundraiser as a Senate candidate, is widely considered a virtual lock to meet the minimum donor threshold.
Another important benchmark to qualify for the debate stage is polling. Candidates must reach at least 1% in three national polls, or at least two national polls and two polls from separate early voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.
The RNC sets criteria to determine which polls meet its standards to qualify for the debate. The first poll to meet RNC standards, a national survey by Morning Consult, found Trump, DeSantis, Scott, Haley, Ramaswamy, Pence, Christie and Hutchinson all reaching the 1% minimum. to count towards making the debate stage.
Others still have zero qualifying polls to the minimum qualifications for the first debate.
Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host and failed California gubernatorial nominee seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, complained in an opinion piece published Wednesday in The Hill that the RNC is “cheating the rules of the game by instituting a set of criteria so burdensome and poorly designed that only establishment- and billionaire-backed candidates are guaranteed to be on stage.
“That’s not what our party is: We’re the party of free speech, debate and the exchange of ideas. With 16 months until the general election, Republicans need to have as many voices on the stage as possible. -accommodate. Anything short of that is elitism,” Elder said.
The third requirement to make the August debate is a pledge to support the future Republican nominee in the 2024 general election.
Some candidates, including Christie, grumbled about the promise but indicated they would agree to it because failure to do so would leave them no real path to the kind of attention needed to win the GOP nomination.
Trump has privately discussed skipping one or both of the first two Republican presidential primary debates, CNN reported in May. Since then he has not said publicly that he will participate in the debate.
DeSantis on Wednesday criticized Trump in an interview with conservative Iowa radio host Howie Carr for his refusal to concede in the debate.
“Nobody has a right to this nomination. You have to earn the nomination,” DeSantis said, adding that the debates are “an important part of the process.”
“I’ll be in Milwaukee for the first debate, and I’ll be at all the debates because the American people deserve to hear from us directly about our vision for the country, and how we can defeat Joe Biden. ,” he said.
