Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who launched his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in mid-June, said getting on to the first debate stage should make or break a candidate.

“I agree that if you can’t meet the minimum thresholds, you shouldn’t be trying to take the time involved away from being productive,” Suarez said at the Iowa State Fair on Friday.

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Suarez has yet to qualify for the debate himself but has insisted he’s confident that he’ll meet the criteria by the deadline. He announced Monday that his campaign met the 40,000 unique donor requirements to take the stage, but he also needs to be polling at 1% or higher in at least three authorized national polls, and he must be at 1% in one early state poll from two separate "carve out" states.

“I am extremely pleased to announce that my campaign has today passed the 40,000 unique donor threshold set by the @GOP to make the debate stage,” Suarez said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

So far, the list of candidates who have met the standards set by the Republican National Committee is less than the majority, and presidential hopefuls also have to sign a loyalty pledge to back the eventual Republican nominee. Suarez, like long-shot GOP candidate Perry Johnson, has met the donor criteria but not the other requirements to take the stage on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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“I’ve been a national figure for 60 days,” Suarez said, emphasizing that he is up against candidates who have been in the game for far longer.

“So, fortunately for me, you’re sort of new, so you have a different threshold, a different time frame, and we’re going to have to compete at the same level,” he said at the event a majority of GOP candidates are attending in a chance to meet the voters who will be the first to cast their ballots in the primaries.