Former Arkansas Governor and current White House hopeful Asa Hutchinson (R) says he will likely suspend his presidential campaign if he does meet the threshold to participate in the third presidential debate.
“If I don't make that, we'll reevaluate where we are,” Hutchinson told reporters on Wednesday.
When asked for clarification if his response meant he would consider dropping out, Hutchinson answered, “Sure.”
Asked about his absence from Wednesday's debate, Hutchinson said, “You got to think of it as a bye week in the NFL. You don't play every weekend. You don't necessarily participate in every debate. And so there'll be another debate that will be coming up down the road. And I certainly hope to participate in that.”
The Republican National Committee (RNC), which is organizing the GOP nomination debates, has required that candidates reach certain polling and donor thresholds to have a podium on stage. The criteria for the second debate was 3% in the polls and 50,000 individual donors. The threshold will rise to 70,000 donors and 4% in the polls for the third debate.
Hutchinson released a statement Monday after the RNC announced the lineup for the second debate, “despite falling short of the RNC's polling requirement for inclusion in the second Presidential Primary Debate, I will continue our campaign to bring out the best of America with events scheduled in Iowa, New Hampshire, and across the country in the next several weeks.”
“I've set as a goal to make sure that we have 4% in the polls by Thanksgiving,” he reiterated on Wednesday. “I expect to be able to do that through my campaigning in Iowa, New Hampshire, some of the early states. This is still a reach. It's still a retail political environment. And if I'm not in the debate today, I'll be in Iowa taking it straight to the voters.”
Former President and current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has refused to participate in any debates and has signaled he's unlikely to participate in the third.
Pointing to Trump, Hutchinson argued, “Tonight, he's going to have an audience of a select few, and he's not going to have any tough questions. You debate me, you've got the tough questions. And there are some very important issues that we have to address as a nation that Donald Trump is trying to take us down the wrong path.”
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Asa Hutchinson would make a good Democrat.
Their lack of situational awareness makes them pretty much clueless, too.
In order to call Hutchinson a “contender” one needs to be on some sort of reality altering drug.