ABC News said Tuesday it has cancelled its Republican presidential primary debate scheduled for Thursday, five days before the New Hampshire primary, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis the only candidate committed to appear.
Former President Donald Trump, the winner of Monday’s Iowa caucuses who has skipped all of the previous GOP primary debates, planned to sit out Thursday, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who finished third in Iowa, said Tuesday she would not attend the debate if Trump wasn’t there.
ABC News and WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire, were co-sponsoring the debate at St. Anselm College.
“Our intent was to host a debate coming out of the Iowa caucuses, but we always knew that would be contingent on the candidates and the outcome of the race,” an ABC spokesperson said in a statement posted on X. “As a result, while our robust election coverage will continue, ABC News and WMUR-TV will not be moving forward with Thursday’s Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire.”
CNN is scheduled to hold a debate Sunday at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire. It doesn’t appear Haley will be at that one either.
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign,” Haley, who is running a strong second behind Trump in New Hampshire polling, said Tuesday in a post on X. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.”
In a post on X, DeSantis said Haley "is afraid to debate because she doesn’t want to answer the tough questions such as how she got rich off Boeing after giving them millions in taxpayer handouts as governor of South Carolina."
"The reality is that she is not running for the nomination, she’s running to be Trump’s VP," DeSantis wrote. "I won’t snub New Hampshire voters like both Nikki Haley and Donald Trump, and plan to honor my commitments. I look forward to debating two empty podiums in the Granite State this week."