This combination of 2023 photos shows, from left, former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, Meg Kinnard)
Republican presidential candidates are set to face off in just two weeks at the party’s first primary debate in Milwaukee, but the White House hopefuls first have to agree to the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) required pledge to support whoever becomes the eventual GOP nominee.
“I affirm that if I do not win the 2024 Republican nomination for President of the United States, I will honor the will of the primary voters and support the nominee in order to save our country and beat Joe Biden,” reads the pledge, according to copies shared online by some of the candidates.
The “Beat Biden” pledge is among several RNC requirements for candidates vying to get on the Aug. 23 debate stage.
Candidates also must meet specific polling thresholds and secure 40,000 or more unique donors, including at least 200 unique donors from 20 or more states and territories. They’re also asked to not participate in any debates not sanctioned by the RNC, and to promise they won’t run as an independent or write-in candidate.
But the loyalty pledge has become the most contentious requirement, with some candidates skirting questions about backing the party’s eventual nominee, and others outright critical of the ask.
Here’s where the candidates stand on signing the pledge:
Donald Trump
The former president said Wednesday that he won’t sign the loyalty pledge.
“I wouldn’t sign the pledge. Why would I sign a pledge if there are people on there that I wouldn’t have? I wouldn’t have certain people as somebody that I would endorse,” Trump told Eric Bolling on Newsmax.
He had long been noncommittal about the pledge, saying back in February that his support would “depend on who the nominee was.”
Trump has hit the polling and donor benchmarks, but whether he joins his fellow candidates onstage is still up for debate. He’s threatened to pass on the event, something he also floated during his 2016 and 2020 bids, but he said Wednesday that he’ll announce next week whether he plans to attend.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and several of Trump’s GOP rivals are among those pressing for him to be part of the upcoming debate.
Ron DeSantis
The Florida governor’s team on Wednesday shared a copy of his signed pledge, captioned “See you in Milwaukee!”
DeSantis had previously ducked questions about whether he’d support the eventual GOP nominee.
According to DeSantis’s campaign, the requirement that candidates not participate in debates unsanctioned by the RNC won’t impact plans for a debate between DeSantis and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The Florida GOP has also said it will ask presidential candidates to sign “word-for-word the same language” as the RNC pledge to support the eventual Republican winner.
Nikki Haley
Haley on Thursday also shared a copy of her signed pledge, captioned, “Alright fellas, your turn.”
The former South Carolina governor had crossed out the “Beat Biden” header on the document and added text to read, “Beat President Harris.”
She recently rebuked her fellow candidates for not supporting the loyalty pledge, saying that it’s “absolutely irresponsible that Trump, DeSantis, and others won’t commit 100% to supporting the Republican nominee.”
Vivek Ramaswamy
The Washington Post earlier this week reported that Ramaswamy had become the first GOP candidate to formally qualify for the debate by signing the loyalty pledge.
The conservative entrepreneur’s campaign had previously told The Hill he planned to sign the agreement.
Chris Christie
Christie has called the RNC’s required pledge to support whoever wins the party’s nomination in 2024 a “useless idea,” saying on CNN it’s “only [in] the era of Donald Trump” is such a pledge is needed.
“In all my life, we never had to have Republican primary candidates take a pledge. You know, we were Republicans, and the idea is you’d support the Republican whether you won or whether you lost, and you didn’t have to ask somebody to sign something,” Christie said.
The former governor said on ABC that he’ll do whatever he has to do to get on the debate stage, but that he’ll take the pledge to back the GOP nominee “just as seriously as Donald Trump did eight years ago.”
Mike Pence
“I’ve always supported the Republican nominee for president in the United States. And I’ll support the Republican nominee in 2024, especially if it’s me,” the former vice president told CNN during a town hall event.
At the same time, Pence has been critical of his former running mate. As Trump faces legal woes related to the transfer of power after he lost the 2020 election, Pence has said “anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”
Pence is the first former vice president in decades to run against the president he once served.
Will Hurd
“I won’t be signing any kind of pledges, and I don’t think that parties should be trying to rig who should be on a debate stage,” Hurd told CNN.
The former Texas representative said plainly that he won’t support Trump and that he’s “not in the business of lying to the American people in order to get a microphone.”
“And so I can’t honestly say I’m going to sign something even if he may or may not be the nominee,” Hurd said.
Hurd also doesn’t appear to have reached the polling and donor requirements with just two weeks to go before the debate.
Tim Scott
Asked whether Scott has met the RNC’s requirements, including the candidate commitment to back the eventual nominee, a spokesperson for the South Carolina senator’s campaign told The Hill that Scott “looks forward to being on the debate stage.”
“All Republican candidates would be better than any Democrat candidate,” Scott told Fox News.
Doug Burgum
Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, told USA Today that he’ll support whoever wins the nomination, including Trump.
“I’m gonna support whoever the Republican candidate is going forward in 2024,” Burgum said on “Good Morning America.”
Asa Hutchinson
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has promised to meet “whatever is set” as the criteria to get on the debate stage, but he’s been critical of the RNC’s requirements overall.
“I have always supported the party nominee, but I have never supported a party loyalty oath. The pledge should simply be that you will not run as a third party candidate,” Hutchinson said in a statement.
The pledge, as shared by the candidates, does include a promise not to run as an independent.
Hutchinson also knocked the polling and donor benchmarks, but added “I do intend to be on the debate stage because it is important.” He appears to have met the polling requirements but said in early August that he was still short on donors.
Francis Suarez
“I think every single Republican candidate who wants to be on the debate stage has to pledge to support the nominee, and I will do that as well,” the Miami mayor said on ABC News.
Suarez has announced his campaign crossed the donor threshold to qualify for the first debate, but he still needs to reach the polling requirements to get on stage.
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