The Republicans Who Could Qualify for the First Presidential Debate

The latest polling and fund-raising data show that the playing field is narrowing for the Republican presidential debate scheduled for later this month. Although former President Donald J. Trump is the clear front-runner in polling, the debate stage in Milwaukee could be an opportunity for other candidates to make an impression.

To participate, each candidate must first satisfy fund-raising and polling criteria set by the Republican National Committee. Financially, they each need 40,000 campaign donors, including at least 200 donors from 20 states. And they need support from 1 percent of Republican voters in three national polls, or in two national polls and two polls in the early primary states. These polls must meet R.N.C. standards, which have substantially limited the number of surveys that could count toward this number. The R.N.C. did not respond to questions about the polling criteria.

Where Each Candidate Stands

	Met goal according to Times analysis
	Met goal according to the campaign

Candidate	Donors	States with 200 donors	Polling level met
Donald J. Trump Trump Former president and businessman	>350,000	50
Ron DeSantis DeSantis Governor of Florida
Tim Scott Scott Senator from South Carolina	35-45,000	35-40
Nikki Haley Haley Former governor and U.N. ambassador	35-45,000	35-40
Vivek Ramaswamy Ramaswamy Entrepreneur and author	35-45,000	35-40
Chris Christie Christie Former governor of New Jersey		30-35
Doug Burgum Burgum Governor of North Dakota
Mike Pence Pence Former vice president	About 3,000	<5
Asa Hutchinson Hutchinson Former governor of Arkansas	About 4,000	<5	Uncertain
Larry Elder Elder Conservative talk radio host	About 2,500	<5	No
Francis Suarez Suarez Mayor of Miami	About 1,000	<5	No
Will Hurd Hurd Former congressman from Texas	Less than 500	<5	No

Note: Donor data is as of June 30.

Candidates have until Aug. 21 to meet the requirements, according to the committee. If they do, they will also need to sign a pledge to follow several R.N.C. guidelines, including a promise to support the eventual Republican nominee.

For several candidates, the threshold of 40,000 individual donors has proved particularly challenging. Mr. Pence has easily surpassed polling requirements, but at the end of June he had yet to reach even half of the required number of donors.

Others, including Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, offered financial incentives to donors to try to reach their goals. After offering donors $20 gift cards for $1 donations, Mr. Burgum said on July 19 that he qualified for the debate financially. Candidates’ financial reports for July will not be filed with the Federal Election Commission until later this fall, after the first scheduled debate.

Mr. Trump eclipses all other candidates by a wide margin in his number of campaign donors. His fund-raising has surged after each of his federal indictments.

But even though Mr. Trump is clearly the dominant Republican candidate so far, he has remained noncommittal about attending the debate and questioned his need to share the stage with candidates who lag far behind him in the polls.

Other candidates who have met the R.N.C.’s polling and financial criteria have already said they would attend the debate, though some had not said whether they would sign the required pledge to support the eventual nominee.

As for the remaining hopefuls, they have three weeks left to scrape together the necessary donors and polling support.