Who Has Qualified for the First RNC Debate?

According to website FiveThirtyEight, six candidates for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential primaries have so far met the criteria to participate in the first Republican National Committee debate, scheduled for August 23. Those who have since July 1 managed to poll at at least 1 percent in three eligible polls and have gathered at least 40,000 individual donors (out of which 200 each must be located in 20 different states) are former President Donald Trump, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former South Carolina governor and Trump ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, as well as Sen. Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

The RNC's metrics are more stringent than those of the Democratic National Committee in the last election cycle, when 20 candidates qualified for the first DNC debate, causing it to be held on two separate nights. For one, candidates have to meet both the polling and the donor metric. One requirement in particular concerning polls - that they have to include 800 likely Republican primary voters or caucus-goers - meant it took more than three weeks into the qualifying time period for a first list of candidates to emerge.

Remaining presidential hopefuls have until August 21 to meet the criteria. Trump's vice president Mike Pence has so far only fulfilled the polling benchmark, but hasn't announced he has met the donor threshold. It is the other way round for North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, who sent gift cards of $20 to donors for contributions as low as $1. None of the criteria appear to be met for candidates Asa Hutchinson, Francis Suarez, Will Hurd and Larry Elder.