North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum will have to find something else to do Wednesday night, as he hasn’t been granted an invite to grace the stage in Miami for the third Republican presidential debate. The five candidates who qualified—Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott—all met the Republican National Committee’s criteria, which included racking up 70,000 unique donors, meeting a polling threshold, and pledging to support the party’s eventual nominee, according to a statement from the committee. NBC News reported that Burgum, who said last month that he’d met the donor requirement, was likely tripped up by polling. In a post on X Monday night, the governor said he planned to continue his campaign, and characterized his upcoming absence as “skipping the next debate.” Also playing hooky from the event, unsurprisingly, will be former President Donald Trump, who has a campaign rally in nearby Hialeah planned for that evening.
