Christie campaign says donor criteria met for next debate

Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie has met the criteria for the third GOP primary debate, his campaign has reportedly said. 

Christie’s campaign told Politico that he’s met the polling and donor thresholds to get on the party’s third debate stage in Miami next month. Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, shared the Politico piece on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) increased the requirements for candidates to qualify after the first debate in Milwaukee and the second in Simi Valley, Calif. 

This time around, the candidates need to be polling at 4 percent or higher in two authorized national polls, or in one national poll and one poll from two separate “carve out” states. These states include Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

They’ll also need to boast at least 70,000 unique donors, including at least 200 from 20 or more states and/or territories each.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy appear to have met the criteria to qualify — as has former President Trump, the front-runner of the party, though he skipped the first two events. 

The former president is also expected to skip the third debate, holding a rally in Florida instead.

Christie has been an outspoken critic of the former president and called out his absence on the prior debate stage. He recently blasted Trump for pushing the RNC to nix the remaining primary debates.

“He wants to end these things for purely selfish reasons, because he doesn’t want to give exposure to the candidates who are challenging him out there,” Christie said in an interview last month.

FiveThirtyEight’s tracker of 2024 Republican candidates has Christie at an average of 3 percent in polls, while Trump sits at 57 percent.