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The Republican National Committee has set a high bar for entry to the first GOP presidential primary debate.
With many potential candidates in the running, who will make it to the stage on August 23rd?
Former President Trump is surely hoping that this debate will help him narrow down his choices for a Vice Presidential running mate.
For starters, each candidate must have at least 1% of support from three national polls or 1% of support from two national polls and two state-specific polls from Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
Additionally, they need 40,000 unique donors to their campaign committee (or exploratory committee), with 200 unique donors per state or territory in 20+ states and/or territories.
As it stands right now, former President Trump easily meets both the polling and fundraising threshold as do North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott.
Mike Pence and Asa Hutchinson are close but still need more donations to qualify for entry into the debate.
The latest New York Times/Siena College poll puts Trump firmly in front with 54%.
This is followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 17%; former Vice President Mike Pence at 3%, Sen. Tim Scott and former Amb Nikki Haley also at 3%, then entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov Chris Christie both at 2%.
It’s clear that Trump remains popular amongst Republican voters.
But which of these contenders will make it past the hurdles imposed by the RNC?
We’ll have to wait until August 23rd when Fox News hosts its first GOP presidential primary debate to find out.
As of writing this post there has been no confirmation whether Donald Trump intends to join other candidates on stage during this historic event – though if he does decide to take part then we can be sure that he’ll be looking carefully at who might best serve as his vice president pick.
