GOP candidates Larry Elder and Perry Johnson plan to sue RNC after they fail to qualify for debate

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidates Larry Elder and Perry Johnson are planning to sue the Republican National Committee after they failed to qualify for the primary debate this Wednesday.

Elder claimed in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that his campaign had sent a debate qualification package to David Bossie, the director of debates for the RNC, prior to Monday - the deadline set for the candidates.

But the committee informed his campaign afterwards that they weren’t accepting a poll from the pollster Rasmussen that he had used in the package to qualify.

“I said from the beginning that it appeared the rules of the game were rigged, little did we know just how rigged it is,” Elder wrote. “For some reason, the establishment leaders at the RNC are afraid of having my voice on the debate stage.”

In a Fox News interview on Friday, however, Elder said he was 2,000 donors short of the minimum 40,000 donor threshold needed to qualify.

Johnson’s campaign also sent an email claiming that the committee had rejected him because they weren’t accepting certain polls.

“The corrupt and rigged RNC debate process has been a trainwreck from the beginning,” said Johnson. “Our campaign hit every metric put forward by the RNC and we have qualified for the debate. It is clear that from the beginning, the RNC knew who they wanted on the stage and who they wanted to ban from the stage.”

USA TODAY reached out to Johnson and Elder’s campaign for comment.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: GOP candidates plan to sue RNC after failing to qualify for debate