The stage is set for the second GOP presidential primary debate – and once again, the frontrunner is nowhere to be seen.
On Monday night, the Republican National Committee confirmed that seven candidates had been invited to Wednesday’s debate: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
This stage represents a small winnowing from the first debate last month. All seven candidates participated in August, but one candidate who was on stage then didn’t make the cut this week: former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who didn’t have the polling numbers to qualify for the debate.
Notably absent from this group is former President Donald Trump, who will instead be in Michigan for a rally on Wednesday. He’s scheduled to speak at 8pm Eastern Time – an hour before the debate – in Clinton Township, a northern Detroit suburb in Macomb County, a key swing area in the general election.
Trump also skipped the first debate last month, counterprogramming the showdown with a pre-taped interview with Tucker Carlson. Trump wasn’t on the invite list, even though he met the polling and donor requirements, presumably because he hadn’t submitted a handful of pledges to the party committee that he had long said he wouldn’t sign.
This week’s debate is sponsored by Fox Business, the Reagan Foundation, Univision and the conservative streaming site Rumble. It will be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California, and begins at 9pm ET.
Trump’s absence was long expected.
Before the first debate, he openly said he had no interest in attending, not wanting to give his lower-polling rivals a chance to chip away at his lead. When he made the decision to skip the first debate, those around the former president made it clear that he wasn’t likely to make the trip to California either.
And his participation in future debates remains an open question. Trump told Megyn Kelly in a recent interview that while he’s open to debating Vice President Joe Biden in the general election, he’s unlikely to appear on stage with his GOP primary rivals when he’s so far ahead in the polls. “I don’t see it,” Trump said. “Why would I do it?”
Skipping the first debate didn’t seem to hurt Trump. While some of the candidates below him have risen and fallen in the polls, none have chipped away at his yawning lead. In fact, his standing in national polls has actually ticked up slightly since the first debate in the FiveThirtyEight average.
Wednesday’s debate stage will largely resemble the August showdown. But the third debate, to be held in Miami in November, could winnow the field further now that the RNC has raised the bar again. According to POLITICO’s analysis, only four candidates have qualified so far – Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy and Haley – though others still have more than a month to get on stage.
For his part, Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, vowed to continue his campaign after missing out on this week’s debate. “I understand that the RNC and the media are trying to reduce the number of candidates,” Hutchinson said in a statement late Monday, “but I measure success by the response I get in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire.”
He added that he hoped to reach 4 per cent – the threshold to qualify for the third debate – in both early states by Thanksgiving.
