Michigan's Perry Johnson excluded from GOP presidential debate; claims 'corrupt' process

Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, who has loaned his longshot campaign for president more than $8 million and in July offered donors a $10 gas card as a thank you for a $1 donation, has failed to qualify for Wednesday's first Republican presidential debate, officials said, despite his extraordinary efforts to do so.

In 2022, Johnson, of Oakland County, spent more than $7 million of his own money seeking the GOP nomination for Michigan governor, but was one of five candidates disqualified from the August primary ballot because they submitted too many fake signatures amid alleged fraud by companies paid to circulate the petitions.

The Republican National Committee, which set thresholds on donor numbers and performance in opinion polls to qualify for the debate stage in Milwaukee, announced late Monday that eight candidates qualified. Johnson was not among them.

Johnson, who hoped to benefit from national exposure in the debate to be aired on Fox News, said the RNC debate qualifying process has been "corrupted, plain and simple." He said in a Tuesday news release he is working with his team to take legal action against the RNC.

“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," Johnson said. "Simply put, this is a flawed decision of a poorly run process of a corrupt organization.”

The RNC issued no immediate statement in response, but a person familiar with the debate planning, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said one of the national polls Johnson cited in support of his debate eligibility surveyed voters in only 38 of the 50 states, and therefore did not qualify.

Johnson said late Monday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that his campaign "hit every metric put forward by the RNC and we have qualified for the debate." Johnson said he would be in Milwaukee on Wednesday for the debate.

Approved for the debate are: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who also offered gift cards for campaign donations, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

Former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the nomination, has said he plans to skip the debates because voters know his record. Trump has also said he will not sign a pledge to support the eventual nominee should he lose, which is among the RNC requirements to qualify for the debate.

Johnson claimed in a Friday news release he had met and surpassed the RNC criteria, which included 40,000 individual donors, including 200 each from 20 states, and performance in qualifying polls that show at least 1% support. Johnson claimed more than 50,000 donors and it appears the main issue related to whether the RNC accepted all of the polling data his campaign cited.

Johnson has framed his presidential campaign around his "2-cents plan," which he says would reduce the deficit and cut inflation by trimming 2 cents from every $1 of federal discretionary spending. He has mostly avoided criticism of Trump.

More: Firm at center of fake signature investigation collected $218K from two governor hopefuls

Johnson, who has been hosting and attending many events in Iowa and New Hampshire and airing TV ads, has made at least 28 loans to his presidential campaign totaling more than $8.4 million, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

In 1994, Johnson founded Perry Johnson Registrars, a Troy-based company that audits and certifies other firms as meeting international standards for quality management systems. He dubbed himself the "quality guru" in the Michigan governor's race.

The gubernatorial primary was won by Norton Shores businesswoman Tudor Dixon, who lost the general election to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan's Perry Johnson excluded from GOP presidential debate