With barely a month to go, the Republican Party still hasn’t announced where in Miami its Nov. 8 presidential debate, its third, will take place, nor the sponsoring network or moderators.
A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee emailed The Epoch Times the rules for debate entry but did not respond to repeated requests for more information or comment about the debate.
Florida Republican Party Chairman Christian Ziegler told The Epoch Times he hasn’t been informed of the venue or network but says it’s not his bailiwick.
“You control what you can control. I’ve got a lot on my plate as state chairman. I don’t meddle in the national debates. That’s not my job,” Mr. Ziegler said. He’s remaining neutral during the primary process and says his job begins when a nominee is selected and the GOP turns to face the Democratic candidate. “If you want to talk about voter registration, I’m your guy.”
What network will sponsor it?
“I don’t frankly care about that,” he said. “I have it on my schedule. I'll be there,” and his request for a block of tickets is in. “The venue and the logistics, what networks, doesn’t impact me.”
It’s the debate itself that matters, he said. And he’s very focused on “on Nov. 4, the Florida Freedom Summit [in Kissimmee]. It will be awesome,” he said.
It will mark the first time President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have appeared at the same venue on the same day in Florida, he said.
It also will feature other candidates, including former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz and Byron Donalds, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and others.
President Trump, far ahead in most polls, has avoided the debates and has so far scheduled events competing head to head with them, an interview with Tucker Carlson coinciding with the first debate and a visit to striking auto workers in Detroit during the second one.
They’ve been overshadowed by the former president’s legal drama, facing 91 charges in 4 criminal cases in four different venues, plus his ongoing civil trial in New York.
As a Republican matter, they’re now overshadowed by the party’s Washington turmoil, as Mr. Gaetz engineered the removal of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Oct. 3.
Mr. DeSantis, in a South Carolina speech on Oct. 4, talked more about his own debate set for Nov. 30 with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, than he did about the Miami debate, other than to tag President Trump for failing to show up at them argue his candidacy to the voters.
The Sept. 27 debate, at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., featured seven candidates frequently interrupting and talking over each other, while the moderators - Dana Perino of Fox News, Stuart Varney of Fox Business, and Ilia Calderon of Univision - seemed to lose control of the debate at times.
The third debate features stricter entry rules but may not shrink the field that much. Only Mr. Burgum, of the seven candidates present on Sept. 27, seems at risk of not qualifying for the third one.
They must also raise money from at least 70,000 donors, including 200 or more in at least 20 states. They must demonstrate to the party all qualifications by 48 hours before the debate.
Of those who don’t, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, at 2.3 percent, had three national polls taken after Sept. 1 showing him with 4 percent or better support. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, also at 2.3 percent, had two as well. Former Vice President Mike Pence, at 3.5 percent, met that threshold in 18 different polls posted on the website.
Burgum, with a 0.9 percent average on the website, hasn’t cleared the 4 percent threshold in a single national poll listed. His closest was 3 percent in a Trafalgar Group poll taken Sept. 19 to 21. He did, though, meet the 4 percent mark in two early primary state polls, one each in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Burgum met the donor mark for the first debate by giving $20 gift cards to those who donated any amount.
“Recent polls show the lower ranking losing ground,” said Susan MacManus, professor emeritus of political science at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “Only DeSantis, Haley and Ramaswamy are doing okay.”
“Until the field narrows, it'll be all Trump, all the time,” she said. She doubted any candidate would have trouble meeting the 70,000 donor mark.
Viewership has been hurt, she said, by disgust with politics nationally. A recent Pew Research poll showed nearly two-thirds of Americans “exhausted” by politics, and more than half of them “angry,” she said.
An open-ended question asked—“What one word or phrase would you use to describe politics in the U.S. these days?”—yielded 16 negative words led by “divisive” and “corrupt,” including one unprintable one.
“The public mood is not forgiving at the moment,” she said. “A majority of both parties and independents think that the nation’s future is threatened.”
“People are exhausted. No one (in Washington) can get anything done that affects their lives,” she said.
She said the Miami debate would likely consist of two events: the debate itself, plus a competing one by Trump, perhaps at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said if the debate slate loses only one candidate, “the dynamics on stage won’t change very much. They'll still not have a whole lot of time as a candidate to talk. There will still be a lot of crosstalk. There will still be a lot of attacks on each other and less on the policies.”
Candidates so far have shown modest polling bumps if they did well in a debate, but their numbers tend to drop back after a few days, he said.
“Trump says they shouldn’t have any debates at all,” Mr. Jewett said. And it makes sense from his standpoint: he’s polling over 50 percent. “Why would he want to go and sit in a debate where everyone was attacking (him) as the frontrunner?”
“The major challengers are disgruntled as well. They want to see the field winnowed more quickly,” Jewett said. Ramaswamy has called to trim the debates to the top four, he said.
Jacob Neiheisel, a political science professor at the University at Buffalo, said he thought the debates would remain fractious even if they were down to two candidates, such as Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley, who has lately knocked the Florida governor out of second place in some New Hampshire polls.
“The style is to get as much (speaking) time as possible,” and sharing it with another candidate isn’t the way to do that, he said.
“There’s no incentive to reign in the combative element. For most, what’s paramount is the amount of screen time in front of the voters.” Managing their image, which might be tarnished if they’re seen as disruptive or not following the rules, is a lesser concern, he said.
Mr. Neiheisel contrasted debates’ increasingly contentious style with the more sedate tone in the past and attributed the change to President Trump.
“The style of politics is largely combative,” he said. “There’s a sense on the Republican side that the base wants that,” and that it’s required now to roll back progressive policies. “There’s a perception among some in the base that the party is not doing that. So the perception is that the candidate who is most combative, will get the most support.”
Another Buffalo professor, Shawn Donahue, said he'd taken advantage of Mr. Burgum’s offer. “I gave him a dollar to get the $20 gift card. It’s the best return on investment I ever made.”
He termed the Republican debates “a fight for who’s going to be second,” with President Trump so far out in front. “You can criticize him all you want to on the stage, but if he’s not there, it doesn’t have the same effect.”
Failing to make the cut for the next debate pressures the candidate to drop out as political donations dry up. Burgum, a software billionaire, has “unlimited money,” Donahue said, but may see invitations to appear on news networks dwindle.
University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock said viewership is steadily dropping because the race seems already decided.
The debates don’t seem to help any challenger develop name recognition and then cut into Trump’s support. “It doesn’t seem to be doing any good.”
“He doesn’t need to do anything to reinforce his supporters,” he said of the former president. “He doesn’t have to get them back on board, because they never left.”
“Is there any conceivable situation or scenario which would cause Trump to lose 30 percentage points of support? I can’t think of one,” he said.
Mr. Bullock speculated that the party has delayed announcing the sponsoring network because they’re having trouble finding a network that wants it.
Viewers may say, he said, “We want our Real Housewives. There’s more drama.”
