Donald Trump’s shadow looms over Republican debate he plans to skip

Donald Trump threatens to cast a long shadow over the first major televised debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle this week, even as the undisputed frontrunner says he will not participate in the primetime event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Trump’s absence from the first Republican primary debate sets the stage for a two-hour brawl on Wednesday night between the remaining candidates – one that political operatives say could strengthen the hand of the former president, as the alternatives turn on each other.

It also tees up a possible split-screen scenario, where Republican hopefuls tiptoe around criticising the former president while he attacks them in a separate broadcast interview.

On Monday night, the Republican National Committee named the eight participants in the debate including Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence and fund manager Vivek Ramaswamy.

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Trump will instead sit down for an interview with ousted Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was fired from the network in April following its $787.5 million settlement with voting company Dominion, according to a report in the New York Times last week. A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The debate comes just a day before Trump is expected to turn himself in to authorities in Georgia on Thursday, as his legal woes continue to escalate. He will pose for a mugshot as he is processed at a local jail after being indicted on more than a dozen criminal charges relating to his efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election.

A hotly anticipated Iowa poll on Monday showed Trump had a more than 20-point lead in the critical early voting state over his next closest rival, DeSantis. In third place was South Carolina senator Tim Scott, followed by former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Pence.

The survey, conducted for the Des Moines Register and NBC News by veteran Iowa pollster J Ann Selzer, echoed trends seen in other state and national surveys, which have consistently shown Trump miles ahead of any of his challengers.

Selzer told the Des Moines Register that while the poll underscored Trump’s strength, the race was not settled, and is “closer than it may first seem”.

Trump’s rivals will be hoping Selzer is right. All see Wednesday’s two-hour primetime debate –which will air on Fox News at 9pm Eastern Standard time (2am Thursday Irish time) – as a chance to grab attention in an increasingly crowded field.

“It is the first opportunity that all of these candidates are going to get to really introduce themselves and make their case to a very concentrated audience of Republican primary voters across the country,” said Kevin Madden, a senior partner at Penta Group, a Washington consultancy, who was a top adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.

But Madden warned Trump would nevertheless be “looming” over the event and risked “blocking out the sun” by continuing to dominate the news cycle.

For example, Trump’s rivals are almost certain to face questions from debate moderators about his mounting legal troubles. Trump faces nearly 100 criminal charges in four separate cases and the trials could dominate his campaign for months.

Most of the Republican candidates have shied away from attacking the former president, and instead echoed his claims that he has been unfairly targeted by Democratic officials.

After months of public prevarication about whether he would attend, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform late on Sunday that he would not participate, citing his recent poll numbers and saying: “The public knows who I am and what a successful presidency I had ... I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”

Several Trump advisers and allies are expected to attend the debate in Wisconsin and be in the “spin room” for reporters after the event, including Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

At the same time, Trump will almost certainly make headlines this week in Fulton county, Georgia, where he said he will voluntarily surrender to authorities after being indicted last week on 13 criminal charges relating to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump late on Monday said he was planning to show up at the jail in Georgia on Thursday, in another apparent effort to pull attention away from his rivals on the debate stage.

“Can you believe it?” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED by a Radical Left District Attorney,” he added, repeating his claims that he was the victim of a “witch hunt”. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023