Republican candidates for the White House who can’t meet stricter discussion rules or raise more money may quit in the next few weeks.
With the requirements to get into the next Republican presidential nomination debate going up and important campaign fundraising reports due in the next few days, the number of GOP candidates for the White House may be cut down in the coming weeks.
Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who thought about running for president in 2024 but decided not to, has been saying for months that the number of people running for the Republican nomination for president needs to go down.
Sununu said, “If you don’t make the first two debates, you probably have to have a tough talk with yourself and drop out of the race.”
Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, participated in the first two Republican debates. In August, he told Fox News that his opponents who “haven’t made the stage” at the talks should “go.”
So far, only one candidate for the White House has given up.
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Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, stopped running for president after he didn’t make it to the first Republican debate for the election on August 23, which was held by Fox News in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, was one of eight candidates on stage at the first debate, but he was the only one who didn’t make it to Wednesday’s second debate, which was co-hosted by Fox Business and held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Hutchinson says that if he doesn’t make it to the stage at the third GOP presidential nomination debate, he’ll think about dropping out.
Hutchinson told reporters this week about the third debate, which will take place on Nov. 8 in Miami, Florida, “If I don’t make that, we’ll take a look at where we are.”
When asked if his answer meant that he was thinking about dropping out, Hutchinson said, “Sure.”
Perry Johnson is a businessman and expert in quality control in Michigan. He didn’t make it to the first two debates, but he is now thinking about running for the open Senate spot in his home state.
“It’s no secret that I’ve gotten a lot of calls from people who want to win this spot asking me to run for it. But right now, I’m focused on the race for president, and believe me, that’s taking up all of my time and energy,” Johnson told Fox News on Thursday.
Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd, who used to work for the CIA as a secret spy, also didn’t make it to the first two meetings.
“My team and I are always figuring out if we have the tools we need to find a way to win,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “I’m going to New Hampshire to tell people about my message before the First In the Nation primary. It’s important to teach people how to deal with these big problems, and I hope that other politicians will follow my lead.”
Larry Elder, a Republican candidate and former nationally broadcast radio host who wants to be governor of California in 2021, also didn’t make it into the first two talks.
Donald Trump, the former president, skipped the first two debates because he was so far ahead in the race for the Republican presidential election. He said last week that he won’t go to the third debate either.
Sununu, who has been very critical of Trump, thinks that the field will be smaller by the end of the year, just before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, which are the first two Republican selection races.
Sununu said, “I think by the end of December, there will be five or six candidates going to Iowa and maybe three or four going to New Hampshire.” “If that’s true, the Republican Party has a huge chance to win.”
Saturday was the end of the third quarter of funding, which ran from July to September. The campaigns need to post their numbers in the next two weeks.
Some candidates who are fighting to make it to the discussion stage might not make it if they can’t raise enough money.
“I think a lot of these candidates are going to run out of gas as they try to drive to the next debate in Miami,” said longtime Republican adviser Alex Castellanos to Fox News.
Castellanos, who has run for president several times as a Republican, said that some of the candidates will “soon have to take their ball and go home.”
“Soon, the smaller candidates will have to drop out so that the field can start to get clearer. Donald Trump can beat anyone, but there may be someone he can’t beat. “That’s the test,” Castellanos made sure to say.
