GOP debate rules aimed at smothering Trump challengers: analysis

The Republican Party's rules for the 2024 presidential debates are rigged to favor Donald Trump.

GOP rules require candidates to register at least 1 percent support and count at least 40,000 unique campaign donors in a minimum of 20 U.S. states and territories, but other requirements seem aimed at boosting the twice-impeached, twice-indicted former president's chances, wrote columnist Bonnie Kristian of The Daily Beast.

"Candidates will be barred from the stage unless they sign two pledges, one to support whomever the GOP eventually nominates for president, and the other to refuse to participate in any general election debate organized by the [bipartisan] Commission for Presidential Debates [which has overseen presidential debates since 1987]," she noted.

Trump is clearly the GOP frontrunner at this point early in the campaign, and the GOP appears inclined to hold debates on smaller right-wing outlets such as Newsmax -- which could deprive low-polling challengers from gaining traction in front of a broad television audience.

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"Trump will be just fine if the primary debates have low viewership, or if the general race has no debates at all," Kristian wrote. "His challengers, DeSantis perhaps excepted, need that national attention. They need the Twitter clips and soundbites and the opportunity, however small, for a breakthrough moment — but their party doesn’t seem inclined to grant it."

GOP candidates are split on signing a pledge to support the party's eventual nominee -- including Trump himself, who has indicated he may not but whose promises are less than trustworthy.

"I’m not even sure he’d register breaking his pledge as an act of bad faith," Kristian wrote. "This is a man, after all, who believes his net worth is determined by his feelings, a man who seems to live in a perpetual now, utterly unencumbered by past promises or future aspirations. He’ll sign what he needs to sign and break what he wants to break."