Larry Elder optimistic about making first GOP debate stage: 'I expect to be there'

Conservative radio host Larry Elder said he believes he will qualify for the first 2024 GOP presidential debate in Wisconsin next week.

Elder has run a long-shot campaign and polled below 1 percent support in national averages. To qualify for the debate he needs three national polls or two national and two state polls with more than 1 percent support and 40,000 individual donors. 

“I’m this close to doing it,” Elder said in a Fox News interview on Friday. He already has one qualifying national and one state poll and is just 2,000 donors shy of the mark, he said.

“I expect to be there,” he added. “There is no plan B. Plan B is to make plan A work.”

Elder said making the stage means spreading his message and focusing on issues that other candidates don’t, like urban education and the “lies” of systemic racism.

“Even if I’m not your guy, even if I’m not the nominee, if I can get the party and the Democrats and the media to begin talking about these kinds of things, then I would have done my job for my party and more importantly I would have done my job for my country,” he added.

Elder wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill last month that the debate requirements are bad for the GOP, as they prevent candidates not backed by the establishment or rich donors from making the stage.

“Whether it was intended or not, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has rigged the rules of the game by instituting a set of criteria that is so onerous and poorly designed that only establishment-backed and billionaire candidates are guaranteed to be on stage,” he said.

“That’s not what our party is about: We are the party of free speech, debate and the exchange of ideas," Elder continued. "With 16 months until the general election, Republicans should have as many voices as the stage will accommodate. Anything short of that is elitism.”