SHUT OUT — To see the global soccer star Lionel Messi debut for his new team — Inter Miami — in late July, fans paid up to $3,500 per ticket. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez asked for just a $1 donation to his campaign for the privilege. The gambit — donate to Suarez’s longshot presidential campaign via Venmo and get entered in a rally for tickets to see Messi play — was part of the mayor’s desperate and ultimately unsuccessful push to get on the Republican debate stage Wednesday night. Suarez wasn’t alone. Multiple candidates went to similarly extreme — and creative — lengths to meet the polling and donor requirements to make the debate stage on Wednesday; as with Suarez, it was all for naught. Between the candidates who will be denied an opportunity on the debate stage and those who will fall flat in their performance, it won’t be long before we see the first campaign casualty of the 2024 GOP primary season. The RNC set the fairly high bar for qualification in order to keep the debate stage manageable; in the end, eight candidates were officially invited to participate: Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie, Doug Burgum and Asa Hutchinson. Donald Trump — the frontrunner for the nomination — followed through on his promise to skip the debate. To guarantee a place In the nationally televised showdown, every GOP contender had to meet the donor threshold of 40,000 individual contributors — at least 200 each from 20 states — and a polling threshold of one percent in three national polls, or two national polls plus one state poll. They also had to pledge to support the party’s eventual nominee. For the big name candidates, reaching these goals was a breeze: former President Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy made the cut from the moment the requirements were announced. But for others, the qualifications were daunting — especially those with meager national profiles. Nearly everyone agreed that an appearance on the debate stage in Milwaukee was essential to being viewed as a serious candidate, and to build any momentum: tens of millions of people watched the 2016 Republican primary debates. Among other reasons, clips from the debates have a much higher chance of going viral than a simple campaign stop, putting a candidate’s face in front of millions of people who may not otherwise have been paying attention. The first debate looms so large, in fact, that earlier this month, Suarez himself argued that candidates who don’t make the first debate should drop out of the race. Burgum, the North Dakota governor who had little name recognition outside of his home state, dipped into his own substantial wealth to fund his campaign. A former software executive, Burgum last month announced a giveaway of a $20 gift card for a $1 donation: “Doug knows people are hurting because of Bidenflation and giving Biden Economic Relief Gift Cards is a way to help 50,000 people until Doug is elected President to fix this crazy economy for everyone,” his spokesperson Lance Trover said. The campaign wasn’t being coy about the fact that this was a ploy to get the governor on stage: “It also allows us to secure a spot on the debate stage while avoiding paying more advertising fees to social media platforms who have owners that are hostile to conservatives,” Trover said. The viral marketing resulting from his gift card scheme not only spread Burgum’s name, it helped him secure the 40,000 donors he needed. The governor qualified on July 25, a little over two weeks after announcing his gift card scheme. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, another successful debate qualifier, paid hundreds of college students $20 a pop for every family member, friend or acquaintance they could persuade to donate $1 to his campaign. Businessman Perry Johnson — who had been disqualified from running for governor of Michigan in 2022 over fraudulent ballot signatures — tried a host of $1 ploys to meet the donor threshold. When Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News, he sold a t-shirt on Facebook for $1 reading “I stand with Tucker.” In July, he offered donors a $10 gas gift card for $1. And he sold his book, “Two Cents to Save America” for, you guessed it, $1. Then there’s Suarez, who in addition to the Messi raffle went to increasingly great lengths to qualify. The super PAC that supports the mayor promised to pay a year’s worth of college tuition to one lucky winner who donated $1 to Suarez’s campaign. Later on, he took a page from Burgum’s book and offered to send out $20 gift cards to those donating $1. Suarez and Johnson’s efforts paid off with donors — both reached that threshold. But even though they also claimed they had met the polling threshold, the RNC disagreed. Neither made the stage, which could effectively end their longshot campaigns. Johnson lashed out, arguing about his exclusion from the stage, “Simply put, this is a flawed decision of a poorly run process of a corrupt organization.” Another excluded candidate who insisted he met the thresholds, radio show host Larry Elder, said today he’s suing the RNC in an effort to halt the debate entirely. Suarez, meanwhile, has said he “respect[s] the rules and process set forth by the RNC.” He now has to contemplate whether he’ll follow his own advice and drop out. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s authors at ckim@politico.com and cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @ck_525 and @calder_mchugh. PROGRAMMING NOTE: Nightly will not be publishing from Aug. 28 through Sept. 4. We’ll be back to our normal schedule on Tuesday, Sept. 5.
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