Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former Vice President Mike Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) will participate in the GOP debate at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum.
The Republican National Committee required candidates to satisfy polling and donor requirements in order to qualify for Wednesday’s debate.
Candidates are required to demonstrate at least 1% support in three high-quality national polls or a mix of national and early voting state polls between July 1 and Aug. 21.
Also, candidates must receive financial support from at least 40,000 donors, with 200 of the contributions coming from at least 20 different states.
Former President Donald Trump handily leads all opponents in polling and met all debate criteria but spurned the debate.
Trump said it did not make sense to subject himself to the inevitable onslaught of attacks since he is so far ahead in the polls, according to an Associated Press report.
“People know my Record, one of the best ever, so why would I debate?” he remarked in a post to his Truth Social account, adding, “I’M YOUR MAN. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
DeSantis’ campaign struggles to live up to initial high expectations. He laid off more than one-third of his staff as federal filings showed his campaign burning through cash like a Kardashian shopping a Macy’s sale.
The Florida Republican has consistently polled second, albeit far behind Trump, so he will likely be the focus of many other candidates debating. After all, it’s hard to debate Trump if he is not present.
The first debate could be a chance for South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to have a breakout moment. The prolific fundraiser had $21 million in the bank at summer’s start, the AP noted.
The only woman in the GOP race, former Gov. Nikki Haley has said transgender students competing in sports is “the women’s issue of our time.”
The former ambassador to the U.N. has drawn praise from a leading pro-life group, which called her “uniquely gifted at communicating from a pro-life woman’s perspective.”
Vivek Ramaswamy is a biotech entrepreneur and author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.”
Ramaswamy has proven popular with audiences at multicandidate events and polls well despite not being nationally known before entering the race. He helps his campaign with continual posts to social media sites.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie opened his campaign by portraying himself as the only candidate ready to take on Trump.
Christie, whose campaign strategy seems to be always anti-Trump, challenged the former president to “show up at the debates and defend his record.”
North Dakota’s Gov. Doug Burgum, a former software entrepreneur in his second term, has largely self-funded his campaign. He controversially rewarded small donors with $20 gift cards to get a qualifying number of donors.
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign reached a qualifying number of donors on August 8. A campaign insider has said earlier this month Pence participated in roughly a half-dozen formal debate prep sessions so far.
At least one of the prep sessions included a campaign aide previously close to Trump playing the part of the former president, the AP report noted.
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