RNC confirms the first debate field — without Trump

The field for the first Republican presidential primary debate is officially set.

And there’s no Donald Trump.

The Republican National Committee announced late Monday evening the eight candidates who were officially invited to participate in the first GOP presidential primary debate: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessperson Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

Trump — the frontrunner for the nomination — announced over the weekend that he would skip the first debate, citing a recent national poll that showed him “leading the field by ‘legendary’ numbers.”

“I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!” he wrote on Sunday.

Wednesday’s showdown in Milwaukee, which will air on Fox News Channel at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, will likely draw far fewer eyeballs in Trump's absence.

But it will still be immensely important to the candidates that are there. DeSantis is looking to reestablish himself as the main contender to the former president after slipping in the polls, while other candidates may look to halt Ramaswamy’s steady climb in the polls.

The eight-candidate debate field is half the size of the first debate eight years ago, also airing on Fox News Channel, when 10 candidates appeared on the main stage, while another 7 debated earlier in the day in what was derided as a “kiddie-table” debate.

But it’s larger than the five candidates who debated in May 2011, when Fox News hosted a debate before some of the candidates, like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry, had even declared. Like this year, the polling frontrunner (and eventual nominee), Mitt Romney, declined to participate in the first debate in 2011.

Notably, the announcement excluded a handful of lesser candidates pining for an invite. Self-described “quality guru” Perry Johnson had appeared to meet the RNC’s requirements after a whirlwind release of surveys from lesser-known (or less-reputable) pollsters in the closing days of the qualification period, according to POLITICO’s tracking of the process. But the committee apparently disagreed.

Johnson called the process to meet the criteria for the debate “corrupted.”

“The debate process has been corrupted, plain and simple,” Johnson said Monday night on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Our campaign hit every metric put forward by the RNC and we have qualified for the debate. We’ll be in Milwaukee Wednesday and will have more to say tomorrow.”

Similarly, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was left off the stage. His campaign claimed on Friday that he qualified — which POLITICO’s analysis did not agree with at the time. His allies argued that surveys released in the subsequent days, including one sponsored by the PAC of a Miami-area state senator, earned him a spot on stage. But evidently, the RNC did not agree.

Also left off the stage are former Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), conservative media personality Larry Elder — who also claimed to have qualified, citing a poll that plainly did not meet the requirements — and Texas businessperson Ryan Binkley.

The RNC’s vague qualifying rules for polls led to a flood of surveys being released over the closing days of the qualification period, muddying the waters for who would actually appear on stage. All told, there were at least a dozen state and national surveys that were released since last Thursday that included at least 800 likely GOP primary voters in their sample — a key benchmark for apparent qualification polls laid out by the RNC — in addition to several other prominent polls that did not meet the qualification rules on their face.

The RNC ignored questions from POLITICO over the last month on which of these polls could qualify candidates, with candidates like Johnson and Suarez rushing in instead to assert their own status.

Republican operatives working for the campaigns privately discussed the uncertainty over the last week — an amusing parlor game for those already on stage, and the source of incredible frustration for those whose campaign lifeblood depends on the national attention afforded by a debate presence.