MILWAUKEE, Wisc. ― Eight Republican presidential aspirants hoping to displace coup-attempting former President Donald Trump atop the 2024 polls got their first shot at a national audience of GOP primary voters Wednesday, taking the stage together in the leadoff debate of the primary season.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgam took the stage at Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team and site of the Republican National Committee’s nominating convention next summer.
Trump, under four separate criminal indictments that could send him to prison for decades, boycotted the event, claiming that he doesn’t need to debate because he is so far ahead in the polls. Instead, he taped an interview with conspiracy theorist and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson to be released as Fox News began its broadcast of the debate, while his campaign’s top officials and various other high-profile supporters attended to argue to reporters that Trump is the inevitable nominee.
Trump, Thursday evening, is planning to travel to the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta to be fingerprinted and photographed on his latest indictment, one from a Georgia grand jury for racketeering and other charges based on his attempt to coerce state officials into overturning his election loss there in 2020.
Wednesday night’s debate is the first in a series to take place about once a month, at least through December. The second is set for the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, at the end of September, and the third will be in Alabama one month later.
The party required candidates to receive contributions from at least 40,000 different donors to participate Wednesday, hit a 1% threshold in at least three national or early state polls and sign a pledge promising to support the eventual nominee, whoever it is.
Former Texas congressman Will Hurd refused to sign the pledge, giving up his opportunity to be on the stage ― even as RNC chair Ronna McDaniel reportedly traveled to Trump’s New Jersey country club to coax him into participating despite his repeated statements that he would not promise to support the eventual nominee. In 2015, Trump signed a similar pledge but later said he was no longer bound by it because the RNC had treated him unfairly.
Christie, for one, said he would sign the pledge with the intention of taking it exactly as seriously as Trump did in 2016. Pence signed it but, in interviews, has insisted he is confident that Republican primary voters would vote against Trump and make moot the question of supporting Trump again in the 2024 general election.
Others, like Ramaswamy and Scott, have signed it without misgivings about backing a man who tried to end American democracy by remaining in power despite losing his election.