With the November 8 USA presidential election fast approaching, preparations are underway for the first of three televised debates featuring Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump. I would love to see them participate in the upcoming Presidential Candidates’ debates, and the Johnson/Weld ticket needs to poll at 15 percent support to be included.
Advertisement
The October 4 vice presidential debate will also be limited to the two major party nominees, Democratic Senator of Virginia Tim Kaine and Republican Governor of Indiana Mike Pence.
The exclusion was announced Friday afternoon by the privately run Commission on Presidential Debates, whose board includes many established Democratic and GOP players.
It’ll just be a showdown between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton on September 26.
The commission said polling averages put Clinton at 43 percent, Trump at 40.4 percent, Johnson at 8.4 percent and Stein at 3.2 percent.
Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, is running for president as a Libertarian for the second presidential election in a row. Clinton’s national lead narrows to 1 point The Trail 2016: Off the sick bed Libertarian Party asks for national security briefings MORE, and his running mate, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, should be eligible.
The goal of the criteria, according to the CPD, is to “identify candidates whose support among the electorate places them among the candidates who have a realistic chance of being elected” president.
At present, Johnson is barred from the debates because of rules set by the presidential-debate commission. He and Stein, however, fell well short of the 15% national polling average required to participate.
“Yet, the Republicans and Democrats are choosing to silence the candidate preferred by those millions of Americans”.
Though pundits did not foresee a surprise election victory for Libertarian Johnson or the Green Party’s Stein, each candidate made recent campaign gains that seemed to put debate participation within reach.
Advertisement
Clinton and Trump will therefore be the only candidates to take part in the first debate, at Hofstra University on 26 September. It should be noted that, when Perot was allowed on the stage, polls showed his support to be in single digits, below where Johnson and Weld are now polling.
