According to POLITICO’s analysis, four candidates have already qualified for the third debate: former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessperson Vivek Ramaswamy and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
All four of those candidates immediately hit the polling threshold — a modest increase from 3 percent in the same number of polls for the second debate — and their campaigns confirmed to POLITICO on Friday that they have at least 70,000 donors, or public fundraising records have previously indicated they have over that amount.
Former Vice President Mike Pence also immediately hit the polling threshold. A Pence campaign spokesperson declined to publicly share an updated donor count on Friday but expressed confidence Pence would make the stage.
His campaign has previously indicated it has at least 50,000 donors — the threshold to get on stage for next week’s second debate in California.
All five of these candidates have hit at least 4 percent twice this month in national primary surveys from Morning Consult, a pollster that meets the RNC’s methodological requirements.
Notably, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie did not immediately hit the polling threshold.
In POLITICO’s analysis, just three national polls — all from Morning Consult — have been released since Sept. 1 that meet the RNC’s requirements. But Scott and Christie did not hit 4 percent in any of them.
The two men both cleared four percent in a pair of state polls, meaning they needed to hit 4 percent in a national poll just once by early November to make it on stage. On Friday, a spokesperson for Christie said that he has “over 60,000” donors while a spokesperson for Scott did not immediately return a request for comment on his donor total. He, too, has already indicated he has at least 50,000 donors to get on stage next week.
Scott’s campaign had publicly urged the RNC to consider more strongly emphasizing early state polling earlier this month, as his possible exclusion from future debates became clearer. Scott advocated that candidates should be able to skip the national polling requirement if they have a high enough support in the early states. Scott — and Christie — have both performed notably better in early state surveys than national ones; the latest RealClearPolitics national polling average has both men at 2.2 percent.
“As the Republican National Committee considers the criteria for the third presidential debate, it should take in greater consideration candidates’ performances and efforts in the early voting states,” Jennifer DeCasper, Scott’s campaign manager, wrote in a letter to the RNC published by Axios last week.
Adam Wren, Natalie Allison and Sally Goldenberg contributed to this report.
