Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Republican candidates on Tuesday night not to blame the RNC for their failure to qualify for Wednesday's debate.
The chairwoman claimed that the guidelines to qualify for the debate were laid out far in advance, and the qualifications were the same for each candidate.
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“I have nothing against all four of these candidates. They are far better than Joe Biden,” McDaniel told Politico. “But the rules are the rules. We were very clear about it. We applied them equally to every candidate. And unfortunately, they fell short for this debate.”
The four candidates who failed to secure a place on the stage were former congressman Will Hurd (R-TX), Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, conservative radio host and former California GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder, and businessman Perry Johnson. Johnson and Elder are suing the committee for not putting them on the stage.
All candidates needed to poll at 1% in at least two national polls and have at least 40,000 donors by Monday night. They also needed to sign a loyalty pledge that stated they would support whoever the Republican candidate ends up being.
“We put forth metrics that we felt would create good polling,” McDaniel said. “I don’t think many people woke up today surprised that these four candidates didn’t make the stage,” McDaniel added later.
“And I hope they do well, but you got to say, ‘Well, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten in as late as I did. Maybe I should have gotten in earlier. I would have had a longer runway to get the polling that I needed.’ I mean, it’s not easy when you have zero name ID to get to 1 percent in three national polls.”
Former President Donald Trump will also not be on the debate stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump, who is the front-runner in the nomination for the 2024 election, did qualify for the debate on the polling and donor threshold, but he refused to sign the pledge.
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The eight candidates who did fully qualify are Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
The debate is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. EST, and it will be moderated by Fox News.