On Friday, CNN reported on which Republican presidential candidates have and have not qualified for the first debate scheduled for next week on Fox News.
The candidates who failed to reach the polling requirements to qualify are Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, talk radio host Larry Elder, and former Texas Congressman Will Hurd.
Businessman Perry Johnson offered giveaways to attract donors, including concert tickets and gas cards. However, he has also failed to reach the polling requirement.
Among the Republicans to reach both the minimum of 40,000 donors and the RNC’s polling requirements is North Dakota Governor Doug Burgrum.
Like Perry Johnson, the billionaire Burgrum enticed donors by offering a $20 gift card to anyone donating a dollar to his campaign.
According to CBS News, the gift card offer helped Burgrum cross the required 40,000 donor mark but cost his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars. But considering the candidate’s vast wealth, he sold his software company to Microsoft in 2001 for more than $1 billion, the money spent on gift cards won’t set Burgrum back too much.
In addition to the minimum donor requirement and polling, Republican candidates must also sign a pledge to support the eventual nominee in the General Election.
Along with Doug Burgrum, the only 2024 GOP candidates to fully qualify for the August 23 debate are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Other candidates have met the donor and polling requirements, but have not signed the pledge, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and Donald Trump.
Chris Christie told CNN in June that he would do what it takes to participate in the Fox News debate, but added that he planned to take the pledge “as seriously as Donald Trump took it in 2016.
