Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign lashed out at the Republican National Committee about the criteria for the next GOP debate that it announced on a Wednesday afternoon phone call with the campaigns.
Following the call, Curt Anderson, Jindal’s chief strategist, said Iowa and New Hampshire “don’t matter now apparently.”
“What happened to the notion of measuring candidate progress in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire? Did they somehow become irrelevant in the last three days? What was the RNC’s role in this?” Anderson said in a statement. “Perhaps they long for the idea of just a national primary, which would enable candidates to not have to actually go out and mingle with real voters, making it easier for an establishment candidate who has the most money to simply purchase the nomination with a blizzard of advertising.”
Anderson continued to criticize the GOP and said that choosing to only use national polling appeared “absurd and illogical.” The RNC did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The criteria for the CNBC debates released on Wednesday afternoon include different polling thresholds for two debates. A main debate will take place on Oct. 28 at 8 p.m. for candidates polling 2.5 percentage points or better in handpicked national polls. Other candidates who exceed a one percentage-point polling threshold will receive an invitation to the 6 p.m. debate on the same day. Jindal averages 0.5 percentage point in RealClearPolitics’ average of national polling.
“The genius of our current process is that it forces candidates to run the gauntlet, it forces candidates to actually meet with voters, it forces candidates to prove over time that they have the dexterity to withstand the rigors of winning a general election,” Anderson said.
