Report: 7 GOP Candidates Likely Qualify for 2nd Presidential Debate Thus Far

Seven Republican candidates have likely qualified for the second GOP presidential debate on September 27, thus far, according to reports, although the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, will skip the event and deliver a prime-time address while visiting with striking autoworkers in Michigan. 

The debate stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next Thursday will likely feature Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and former Gov. Chris Christe (R-NJ), CBS News politics reporter Aaron Navarro reports.

These candidates, who all participated in the first debate, “are likely to have” met the Republican National Committee’s more stringent polling and donor requirements, according to Navarro. Their fellow participants in Milwaukee in August – Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) – have not yet hit the benchmark, per CBS News, and are on track to fall short, according to an earlier report from Tim Reid of Reuters. 

To qualify, a candidate must either garner three percent or more in two national polls or at least three percent in one national in addition to three percent in two  of the first four early voting states. The poll must also be taken on August 1 or later, and candidates have until 48 before the debate to prove to the RNC they met the threshold. 

Real Clear Politics (RCP) reports Burgum and Hutchinson each averaged .2 percent nationally from August 1-September 15. Notably, the RCP average includes polls that do not meet the RNC’s respondent requirements, but the figure offers a general reference point for their performance in the relevant time frame. 

Candidates must also satisfy the 50,000 unique donor threshold to participate, which is an increase of 10,000 from the first debate. Reid noted that Burgum and Hutchinson are unlikely to satisfy this threshold. 

Multiple sources on Monday confirmed to Breitbart News that Trump will meet with members of the United Auto Workers in Detroit, Michigan, who are striking against the Big Three automakers, General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, during the debate. The New York Times reports he will deliver a “prime-time speech before current and former union members.” 

The strategy mirrors his counter programming from the first debate, which dueled with a 45-minute interview between Trump and Tucker Carlson on the host’s eponymously-named show, Tucker on Twitter, which was released moments before the debate and went viral. 

The third debate is reportedly going to take place in Miami, Florida, in November, as Breitbart News noted.