8 candidates qualify for Wednesday’s first Republican presidential debate

Eight Republican candidates have met the criteria to take the stage and will participate in the first GOP presidential debate on Wednesday night, the Republican National Committee has announced.

The eight participants are: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, former vice president Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.).

Former president Donald Trump, the party’s current front-runner, has opted to skip the debate and instead participate in a prerecorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The first debate, taking place in Milwaukee, will air on Fox News’s platforms at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.

To qualify to step onto the debate stage, the RNC required candidates to meet fundraising and polling criteria, and to pledge to support the eventual nominee of the party. The committee set a deadline of 9 p.m. Monday for candidates to accumulate at least 40,000 donors and hit 1 percent in a certain number of qualifying national and state polls.

Candidates will be placed on the debate stage based on where they rank in the polls. The RNC announced that DeSantis, who ranks first in the polls among the group onstage, will be in the center next to Ramaswamy, who ranks second. Pence and Haley take spots three and four to the left and right of center, followed by Christie and Scott to make up spots five and six respectively. Hutchinson, who ranked seventh, and Burgum, who ranked eighth, will be closest to the wings of the stage and farthest from the center.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement that the committee “is excited to showcase our diverse candidate field and the conservative vision to beat Joe Biden on the debate stage Wednesday night.” The debate lineup includes three people of color, one of whom is a woman.

Candidates who will not be on the debate stage include Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez, former Texas congressman Will Hurd, media personality Larry Elder and business executive Perry Johnson.

Wednesday’s debate is an opportunity for the candidates to introduce themselves to a broad swath of the public - or recast their already public image.

[With Trump skipping first Republican debate, his rivals try to seize the spotlight]

DeSantis has been working with one of the most sought-after Republican debate coaches to prepare. Pence is aiming to reintroduce himself and demonstrate his expertise on the world stage. Christie is gearing up for what supporters hope will be a forceful case against the ex-president. And Scott recently told reporters his strategy will be to present himself as “an optimistic, positive guy anchored in conservatism.”

But Trump is expected to loom large over Wednesday’s debate. Fox News moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum have signaled that they plan to press the candidates for their opinions on Trump’s alleged crimes. And the attention normally bestowed on a debate’s standout performer could be cut short - because Trump faces a Friday deadline to surrender in Fulton County, Ga., where he and 18 others were charged with crimes related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump has said on social media that he plans to appear Thursday.

Trump has also lined up counterprogramming by dispatching a coterie of advisers and surrogates to the Milwaukee debate, including Kari Lake, the former Arizona gubernatorial candidate, as well as Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

Some candidates not on the RNC’s list of debate qualifiers had publicly claimed to meet the criteria.

Elder announced Tuesday that he plans to sue the RNC, writing on the social media platform X, “I will fight to be on that debate stage because I fully met all of the requirements to do so.”

And Johnson tweeted Monday night that the “debate process has been corrupted.”

“Our campaign hit every metric put forward by the RNC and we have qualified for the debate. We’ll be in Milwaukee Wednesday and will have more to say [on Tuesday],” Johnson added.

Suarez, who also claimed to have qualified for the debate, previously said that candidates who don’t meet the minimum requirements for debates should drop out.

Hurd, a former congressman of a Texas swing district, has said he will not sign a pledge to support the GOP’s eventual nominee. In a statement Wednesday, he blasted the “lack of transparency” around the RNC’s debate requirements, saying the committee’s polling standards are “arbitrary, unclear and lack consistency.”

“The RNC discounted polls that included independents and Democrats willing to vote for a Republican,” Hurd said, adding: “Expanding our party should be applauded, not penalized.”

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Maeve Reston, Hannah Knowles and Dylan Wells contributed to this report.