Democrats are particularly anxious that young voters are gravitating to Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein over Clinton.
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Johnson has said that if he doesn’t make it onto the debate stage, it’s “game over” for his campaign. The commission is requiring candidates receive at least 15 percent in the polls, Johnson gets just over 9 percent, and Stein gets 3-percent.
The US Commission on Presidential Debates announced on Friday that Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein will not participate in the September 26 debate because they failed to garner the 15 percent support in five polls required to qualify for the debate.
The Stein campaign has not released a statement.
“The Commission is a private organization created 30 years ago by the Republican and Democratic parties for the clear objective of taking control of the only nationally-televised presidential debates voters will see”, he said, adding that his 8.4 per cent support “represents 13 million voters, more than the total population of OH and most other states”.
Johnson was joined by his vice-presidential running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, and comedian Drew Carey, the co-owner of the Seattle Sounders. He added the commission was an invention of the two major parties, created to exclude third parties from televised debates.
Green Party candidates (left) Ajamu Baraka and (right) Jill Stein won’t let the widely reported fact that they don’t qualify for the debates stop them from showing up anyway.
The criteria are applied before each debate, which means Johnson could conceivably be invited to the second and third debates if his poll numbers improve.
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Bernstein reported that his sources say Weld is anxious about detracting support from Clinton, but Weld called Bernstein’s reporting “wishful thinking” in a statement to CNN. If Hillary Clinton carries Arizona in November, there’s a good chance it won’t be because the Democratic Party alone has picked off a reliably red state it believes will someday be consistently blue.
