Republican Party frees candidates to organize their own presidential debates

“We have no RNC debates scheduled in January and any debates currently scheduled are not affiliated with the RNC,” the RNC’s Commission on Presidential Debates said Friday in a statement. “It is now time for Republican primary voters to decide who will be our next President and candidates are free to use any forum or format to communicate to voters as they see fit.”

Some news organizations, anticipating the shift, have already volunteered to host future events for the candidates. CNN announced two events Thursday for candidates that receive at least 10 percent support in three qualifying national or state polls, a category that would currently limit the meetings to just two candidates, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nation’s ambassador Nikki Haley.

Former president Donald Trump, the current polling leader, would also qualify, but he has called for an end to all nomination debates and declared that the party should anoint him the nominee before Republican voters cast any nominating votes.

ABC News and WMUR, a New Hampshire affiliate, announced another debate in that state next month, just days before the CNN debate. Qualification requirements will be announced at a later time.

Chris LaCivita, an adviser to Trump, welcomed the news of RNC’s retreat. “Republicans know and have demonstrated repeatedly who they want to talk on Crooked Joe Biden. No amount of fake news kiddie debates featuring has-beens auditioning for first place loser is going to change that,” he said. “We are however glad the RNC has decided to move on.”

St. Anselm College, outside Manchester, N.H., was announced as the location of both the CNN and ABC News debates in that state. Neil Levesque, the executive director of The New Hampshire Institute of Politics and Political Library at St. Anselm College, said after the CNN announcement that the event with that network had not been “planned or booked.”

DeSantis tweeted that he “looked forward” to the Iowa CNN debate. Haley’s campaign has not yet weighed in on what events she will attend.

The RNC, which has not said whether it will try to organize another nomination debate next year, has played a role in organizing the events since the 2016 election cycle, after two previous campaigns in which the number of presidential debates exploded, as networks and news organizations fought with each other to secure events and the ratings they brought.

But the first four party-organized debates this year have been far lower profile events, given Trump’s refusal to participate.

Three of the four candidates on the last debate stage — DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — have at different points called for the RNC to allow them to debate each other at will, including in joint appearances on cable news network shows.

But the decision to release candidates from RNC-moderated rules does effectively increase the negotiating position of DeSantis and Haley, the two people now vying for a second place spot in Iowa.

Meagan Vazquez contributed to this report.