Just one day before the highly anticipated Republican presidential debate, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has released a list of candidates who will be on stage and those who were excluded.
Eight hopefuls have met the standards set by the RNC to participate in Wednesday’s verbal face-off: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
Unfortunately for some contenders vying for the GOP nomination this year—businessman Perry Johnson, radio host Larry Elder, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former Congressman Will Hurd (R-TX), and Texan businessman Ryan Binkley—they didn’t make it past the RNC’s cut-off point.
In order to be eligible to participate in Wednesday’s debate candidates had to exceed 1% nationally in three polls or in a mix of national and early state polls sanctioned by the committee as well as accrue 40 thousand individual donors from at least 200 unique contributors per state across 20 states.
The RNC was determined not to repeat 2015’s blunder when too many candidates qualified for their first nationally televised debate so they had no choice but to divide participants into two stages.
I intend to sue the RNC to halt Wednesday's presidential debate.
I said from the beginning that it appeared the rules of the game were rigged, little did we know just how rigged it is. For some reason, the establishment leaders at the RNC are afraid of having my voice on the… pic.twitter.com/PX5fnD1Rkn
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) August 22, 2023
Larry Elder announced that he would be suing for inclusion into Wednesday’s clash since his team submitted a “strong qualification package” yet was denied entrance based on Rasmussen polls which are said to be too closely associated with President Trump who has told his allies he won’t join this week’s battle because “he is up by too many points” according to major polls both nationally and in early voting states.
Elder has been outspoken about how criticism that he needs a “wake-up call” to walk away from the Republicans is unfair especially considering President Trump has received more support from African Americans than any other prior Republican president.
Instead of giving his adversaries an opportunity attack him directly on stage during Wednesday night’s showdown President Trump has decided against partaking instead opting for an interview with Tucker Carlson at an alternate time slot.
This decision makes sense as Trump is far ahead of all other Republicans in terms of popularity ratings—some surveys even reaching beyond 50 percent threshold so there really isn’t much risk involved if he opts out this time around.
