First GOP debate: Who’s in, who's out, and who’s sweating

Spectators are salivating at the opportunity for former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to savage each other at the Republican National Committee's first sanctioned 2024 debate in August. Others are hoping former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will make himself into a human grenade on stage as he did with Sen. Marco Rubio in 2016.

But what if these high-profile matchups don't happen?

The RNC unveiled its qualifying criteria for the Aug. 23 debate on Friday. While it’s too early to know exactly which candidates may or may not make the stage, the various party-loyalty requirements and polling and fundraising thresholds raise plenty of questions about a number of prominent candidates.

The field is already large and poised to grow next week, if, as expected, Christie, Mike Pence and Doug Burgum each jump in. Those potential entries would bring the number of major candidates who have held federal or statewide office to eight.

And with a handful of other Republicans who've never been elected spending seven figures on self-funded TV ads, the number of credible candidates is quickly approaching double digits.

The bigger the field, the greater the chance the party has a number of candidates too large to fit on one stage together. The RNC said in its announcement that it could add a second debate the night after, if needed, to accommodate more candidates, though it didn’t specify what kinds of numbers would require splitting the field.

But the RNC's requirements are also stricter than they've been in the past, making it equally possible just a few candidates make the stage. Candidates who have long, impressive political resumes but are struggling to gain any traction in the polls may be left out in the cold.

Perhaps the biggest question is around Trump's participation. The RNC requires that all participants pledge to support the party’s eventual nominee, something that could cause Trump, who bailed on televised debates in both 2016 and 2020, to sit it out entirely.

The debates stand alone when it comes to penetration: 24 million people watched the first debate in 2015, which also aired on Fox News Channel, a staggering number for cable television. A larger field of candidates could benefit the frontrunner, Trump, who commands a loyal following after eight years dominating GOP politics.

The polls that will count for qualification are still at least a month away from even entering the field, but that doesn’t mean it’s too soon to wonder who’s likely to make the cut — and who might be on the outside looking in when Republicans gather in Milwaukee later this summer.

The 5 candidates on lock

Donald Trump: The former president will obviously have no problems meeting the polling (1 percent in three national polls or two national polls plus one state poll) or fundraising (40,000 individual donors) thresholds. But can Trump stomach the pledge to support the party’s nominee and promise not to participate in any unsanctioned debates?

Candidates have until Aug. 21 — two days before the first debate — to deliver those signed pledges. A protracted “Will he or won’t he?” guessing game up right up until the deadline would be in keeping with Trumpian precedent.

Ron DeSantis: Even though he has the second-highest name ID in current polls, the debates could offer DeSantis his first chance to personally introduce himself to a national GOP primary electorate — and draw contrasts with Trump. That’s if they’re on the same stage, though.

The RNC did not respond to questions on Friday about how — if a second debate stage is needed — they would group the candidates. There are at least two options: keep the highest-polling candidates together, as Republicans did in 2015, or split them up randomly. That’s how Democrats approached their large field in 2019, which led to some oddities, like now-President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) not appearing on the same stage until the third debate.

Nikki Haley: The former South Carolina governor isn’t polling in double-digits like Trump or DeSantis, but she should have no trouble with the polling threshold, having pulled 1 percent or greater in every one of the 50 national polls conducted this year. A Haley spokesperson said she reached the fundraising mark earlier this year.

Tim Scott: Haley’s fellow South Carolinian isn’t polling quite as high — at least before his campaign launch last month — but he should be fine. He hit at least 1 percent in the last five national polls collected by RealClearPolitics and nine of the last 10.

Scott has also built a strong fundraising base during his Senate tenure.

Vivek Ramaswamy: Ramaswamy has hit at least 1 percent in the last eight polls listed by RealClearPolitics (and 17 of the last 18). Despite the fact he’s self-funding much of his campaign, Ramaswamy has said he’s reached the donor threshold — an effort bolstered by solicitations for $1 donations seeking to build his list and check this qualification box, even if it has little impact on his coffers.

The 5 candidates on the bubble

Mike Pence: Pence will have the polling: He’s one of only four candidates to hit 1 percent in every national poll this year (along with Trump, DeSantis and Haley).

But the former vice president’s late entry — he’s planning to launch his campaign next week — could complicate efforts to reach the donor threshold before Aug. 21, especially without real access to the party’s more conservative small-donor base. Pence has also demurred when asked in the past if he’d support Trump as the nominee again, a question he’d effectively have to answer by signing a loyalty pledge.

Chris Christie: If he runs, the former New Jersey governor could meet the polling threshold. He was at 1 percent or greater in three of the nine May polls in the RealClearPolitics average — a paltry performance, to be sure, but good enough if there are enough polls during the qualifying period.

The RNC’s polling standards are strict, especially around sample size, and many of the polls in the RealClearPolitics database wouldn’t meet them. Friday’s press release specified that polls must survey at least 800 likely Republican primary voters, which is both a large number and a specific screen.

Most national pollsters conduct surveys of around 1,000 voters, a sample size too small to contain 800 Republicans without an oversample. And some pollsters are hesitant to classify anyone as a “likely voter” so far before an election.

Even with that, donors would be the biggest hurdle for Christie to clear. Like Pence, he has a shorter runway than candidates who are already running and could struggle with grassroots donors more aligned with Trump.

Larry Elder: Elder didn’t come close to ousting Gavin Newsom in the 2021 California recall election, but he did manage to build a decent donor list during the campaign. An Elder spokesperson described the campaign as “well on our way” to meeting the donor threshold by the deadline.

As for the polling, he has a shot. Elder reached 1 percent in three polls in May; he’d just need to accomplish that same feat from July 1-Aug. 21.

Chris Sununu: Sununu might not end up running at all, but the polling bar could be doable if he did. He’s been at 1 percent in five of the last seven national polls, and he’d easily clear that in surveys from New Hampshire, the state where he was first elected governor in 2016.

Again, the donor mark would be a tougher one to clear.

Asa Hutchinson: Hutchinson has been in the race for months, which gives him a leg up over some of the other candidates vying for the Trump-critical lane, like Pence and Christie. In a statement, Hutchinson said he intends to qualify but criticized the donor threshold, saying it “will keep some candidates from being on the debate stage and benefits candidates who generate online donations through extreme rhetoric and scare tactics

Hutchinson has reached 1 percent in seven of the past 11 national polls in the RealClearPolitics database, suggesting that wouldn’t necessarily be out of reach for him once the polls start to count next month.

The 4 candidates sweating it big time

Doug Burgum: The North Dakota governor is poised to join the race next week, and perhaps he’ll start to register in the national polls once pollsters begin including him in their list of candidates.

Burgum, a former software executive who sold his company to Microsoft, is going to self-fund, but he said he’ll also seek outside donations. He’ll need 40,000 donors in fewer than 11 weeks — roughly equal to 5 percent of his state's population.

Perry Johnson: Johnson calls himself a “quality guru” in his self-funded TV ads. He’s spent real money in Iowa and New Hampshire — $1.8 million through next Friday, according to AdImpact — and could register in polls there.

But the donor thresholds can exclude self-funders even if they’re polling well. Just ask Mike Bloomberg four years ago.

Ryan Binkley: The Dallas-area businessman and pastor is advertising in Iowa, though the last independent poll there didn’t even include his name. A Binkley campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about his donor count.

Mike Rogers and Will Hurd: The former congressmen from Michigan and Texas say they’ll make a decision soon on running, but the debate thresholds could preclude close those doors before they open.

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Trump wants new judge in hush money case

NEW YORK — Lawyers for Donald Trump asked a Manhattan judge to recuse himself from presiding over the criminal case against the former president, arguing in a court filing that the judge is biased and has a conflict of interest.

In papers dated May 31 and filed publicly Friday, Trump’s lawyers said the judge, Juan Merchan, has an “actual or perceived conflict of interest” because his daughter works for a digital agency, Authentic, whose clients include a number of Democratic officials.

The lawyers also said Merchan displayed a “preconceived bias” by urging Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, to cooperate against Trump in an earlier case. Weisselberg pleaded guilty to tax fraud last year after he was indicted alongside the Trump Organization. The company was found guilty at a trial overseen by Merchan.

Susan Necheles, a lawyer who represented the company at trial and is now on Trump’s defense team for his criminal case, said in a court filing that Weisselberg’s lawyer told her that Merchan had encouraged Weisselberg to cooperate with prosecutors.

Trump’s lawyers also asked that Merchan publicly explain political contributions in his name. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Merchan made three political contributions through ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. He gave $15 to President Joe Biden’s campaign, $10 to the Progressive Turnout Project and $10 to Stop Republicans, records show.

“This case before this Court is historic and it is important that the People of the State of New York and this nation have confidence that the jurist who presides over it is impartial. Most respectfully, the foregoing facts compel the conclusion that Your Honor is not and thus should recuse,” Trump lawyers Necheles and Todd Blanche wrote in the filing.

A trial in the case is scheduled for next March.

A court representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said prosecutors would respond in court papers.

Trump pleaded not guilty in April to 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged scheme during the 2016 presidential campaign to pay hush money to cover up allegations of extramarital affairs. The indictment, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, made Trump the first former president ever to face criminal charges.

Trump’s lawyers also asked Merchan to recuse himself in the case against the company. Merchan declined to do so.

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Fitch warns it could still cut U.S. debt rating even after deal

Fitch Ratings on Friday warned that it could still downgrade the U.S.’s credit rating even after Congress passed a bill that averts an unprecedented default on government debt.

While the deal to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending are “positive considerations,” Fitch said “repeated political standoffs" over the federal government's borrowing limit "lowers confidence in governance on fiscal and debt matters.”

Fitch issued its negative credit watch for U.S. debt last week. The company said it intends to "resolve" its negative watch by the end of September.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation later today.

Treasury securities are the lifeblood of financial markets and a benchmark for how everything from municipal debt to credit card rates are priced. A downgrade, which would mark only the second time a ratings service has knocked U.S. bonds from top-tier status, could drive up borrowing costs for consumers, businesses and governments — tightening credit conditions at a time when the economy is already at risk of recession.

That would make for tough political headwinds for Biden, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other 2024 incumbents who waited until the U.S. was days away from default before agreeing to a deal. A similar dynamic influenced S&P’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating in 2011 even after President Barack Obama and Republican leaders averted a debt-limit disaster.

So far, the economy has shown surprising resilience despite stubbornly high inflation and a rapid series of interest rate hikes shepherded by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

But U.S. policymakers have risked damaging the economy’s otherwise strong fundamentals thanks to “a steady deterioration in governance over the last 15 years,” according to Fitch’s statement.

“Increased political polarization and partisanship as witnessed by the contested 2020 election, repeated brinkmanship over the debt limit and failure to tackle fiscal challenges from growing mandatory spending has led to rising fiscal deficits and debt burden,” the ratings service said.

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Europe gathered in unity for Ukraine. Zelenskyy's plea exposed its divisions

Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to a major summit in Moldova to ask for "security guarantees" just as France and Germany were diverging on the issue.

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White House set to tap Obama veteran Mandy Cohen to lead CDC

President Joe Biden plans to appoint former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO.

Cohen, an Obama-era health official well known in Democratic policy circles, would replace outgoing CDC chief Rochelle Walensky, who is slated to leave the agency at the end of the month.

The White House declined to comment, and the people with knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to discuss personnel moves, cautioned that the decision is not finalized. Cohen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Biden is expected to formally announce Cohen’s selection later this month. She had also met in recent days with White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and Health Secretary Xavier Becerra to discuss the job.

Cohen’s appointment would come at a transition point for the CDC, which faced intense scrutiny over its performance throughout the Covid crisis and low morale within the sprawling agency.

Biden picked Walensky at the outset of his administration in an effort to restore trust in the CDC and public health more broadly, vowing at the time that she would play a prominent role in directing his pandemic response. Yet while Walensky placed renewed emphasis on relying on science to craft policy, she also came under fire at times over the CDC’s shifting guidance and shaky messaging around key elements like masking and vaccines.

The CDC is also in the midst of a strategic overhaul launched by Walensky last year; a longer-term project that Cohen would be tasked with managing in an effort to better prepare the agency for the next public health emergency.

Biden officials involved in the search came away from discussions with Cohen impressed by her broad range of health experience at the federal and state levels, two of the people said, and convinced she had the ability to manage the nearly 11,000-person agency and the broader political dynamics of an administration gearing up for Biden’s re-election run.

Cohen spent four years as North Carolina’s health secretary, most notably running the state’s pandemic response before stepping down in January 2022. The role gave her the requisite public health experience that Biden aides were seeking in a candidate to replace Walensky, two of the people with knowledge of the matter said.

And during the Obama administration, she did stints as a senior official in various parts of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where she was central to the agency’s high-profile implementation of the Affordable Care Act — and worked closely with Zients and other now-senior Biden officials.

Cohen also became one of the agency’s go-to officials for congressional testimony, winning praise for parrying pointed questions from Republicans sharply opposed to the health care law.

While Cohen’s appointment will not require Senate confirmation, she is likely to face ongoing scrutiny from Republican-led House committees investigating the Covid response.

Ben Leonard contributed to this report.

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Key Arizona election official to step down amid harassment and conspiracy theories

Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates, a high-profile election official who has faced heavy scrutiny and harassment in one of the country’s largest counties over the last two cycles, is stepping down at the end of his term.

Gates, an Arizona Republican, announced his intention on Thursday to not run for reelection in 2024, saying in a statement that he intends to “pursue other interests and opportunities.” His decision was first reported by The Washington Post.

A spokesperson for Gates pointed POLITICO to Gates’ statement when asked for further comment.

Gates, who, along with his family, has been the target of threats and attacks during his tenure from those trumpeting false election claims, previously said that he suffers from PTSD. He is just one of many election administrators choosing not to run again following years of harassment from conspiracy theorists and a widespread lack of support for their work.

“Regardless of personal partisan preferences or external pressure, I remained focused on making our region the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” Gates said in Thursday’s statement. “My will to fight for the truth remains unhindered, and I look forward to Maricopa County running the 2024 election.”

Maricopa County, Arizona’s largest county that’s home to close to 5 million people, has been in the center of litigation and conspiracy theories about the validity of election outcomes.

Gates has drawn criticism from defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who tried unsuccessfully to get the county to redo her contest, claiming that “hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election.”

“Mr. [Gates’] malicious incompetence has been an albatross on Maricopa County,” Lake’s campaign account tweeted in response to the announcement. “We encourage Mr. Gates to never involve himself in representative politics again.”

The county experienced issues with its printers in the midterm elections. But an external investigation completed earlier this year found those problems were due to equipment failure — not intentional misconduct.

Those election fraud conspiracy theories aren’t new. Following the 2020 presidential race, a Republican-backed audit of Maricopa County’s election debunked former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was rigged.

Gates is one of four Republicans on the county’s five-person Board of Supervisors — all of whom the county’s Republican Party censured following the 2022 midterms due to claims of “avoidable errors” that lead to “significant voter disenfranchisement.” All of the supervisors are up for reelection in 2024.

Gates was first elected to the board in 2016, and served as chair of the board in 2019 and 2022. Prior to joining the board, he served on the Phoenix City Council.

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Biden falls on stage at Air Force graduation but is 'fine,' according to spokesperson

President Joe Biden fell on stage at the Air Force Academy graduation on Thursday after handing out the last diploma to cadets, according to video and reporters at the scene.

“He’s fine. There was a sandbag on stage while he was shaking hands,” White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt wrote on Twitter, in response to video of the fall.

Biden appeared to trip, and he was on the ground for just a couple of seconds as Air Force officials helped him up.

Biden, 80, is the oldest person to serve as president in American history. His chief reelection rival, former President Donald Trump, would also become an octogenarian in office if elected in to another four-year term in 2024.

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