After refusing to take part within the first two Republican debates, former President Donald J. Trump and aides to his marketing campaign have spent the previous week arguing that there must be no extra. The Republican Nationwide Committee, they are saying, ought to deal with the race for the occasion’s nomination as over, given Mr. Trump’s massive lead within the polls.
However in interviews on Thursday, greater than a dozen members of the R.N.C. recommended that they had been giving little weight to the Trump marketing campaign’s attraction.
Two members of the occasion’s debate committee stated the notion of canceling debates had not even risen to the extent of dialogue on the committee. The members — Juliana Bergeron, the nationwide committeewoman from New Hampshire, and Gordon Kinne, the nationwide committeeman from Missouri — additionally stated they had been undecided on which candidate to assist themselves.
Mr. Trump, they stated, was not entitled to the deference that the occasion would give an incumbent.
“That is what we’re doing. He’s identified that each one alongside,” Mr. Kinne stated. “We perceive that he’s bought a considerable lead and that will keep that manner, however these different individuals are entitled to have their day too, and we’re attempting to make it honest. So that you simply can’t go change the principles in the course of the sport.”
The New York Occasions spoke with 14 members of the R.N.C., together with Ms. Bergeron and Mr. Kinne. Solely one of many members supported Mr. Trump’s suggestion — and reluctantly.
That member, Louis Gurvich, the state chairman of the Republican Get together of Louisiana, stated that he thought of debates “a necessary a part of the political course of,” however that he didn’t realistically count on productive ones within the present race. “Fairly frankly, I believe the debates have demeaned each candidate who participated in them,” he stated of the primary two, expressing frustration on the candidates’ shouting over each other as they fought for airtime.
The opposite R.N.C. members who spoke with The Occasions dismissed the thought, with various levels of frustration.
“It’s nuts. I imply, it’s loopy,” stated Henry Barbour, nationwide committeeman for Mississippi, including that he had not determined which candidate to assist. “Why would — we’re simply going to cancel the first?”
Paul Dame, the chairman of the Vermont Republican Get together, who had urged Republicans to maneuver on from Mr. Trump, stated the suggestion was “a slap within the face of voters.”
“Trump would have been screaming if Jeb Bush had tried to tug one thing like that again in 2016,” Mr. Dame stated. “Trump was the outsider within the 2016 race, and now he’s attempting to make use of his place because the insider to close different folks out, which is the precise sort of factor he was in opposition to.”
Gordon Ackley, the occasion chairman within the Virgin Islands; Oscar Brock, the nationwide committeeman for Tennessee; José Cunningham, the nationwide committeeman for Washington, D.C.; Drew McKissick, the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Get together; Invoice Palatucci, the nationwide committeeman for New Jersey; Andy Reilly, the nationwide committeeman for Pennsylvania; Steve Scheffler, the nationwide committeeman for Iowa; and Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Get together and normal counsel for the R.N.C., all rejected the thought as properly.
“If the R.N.C. shouldn’t be going to deal with a Republican presidential debate, then who will?” stated Mr. Reilly, who shouldn’t be but dedicated to supporting a specific candidate. He disagreed with the assertion by Chris LaCivita, a Trump marketing campaign adviser, that the latest debate on Sept. 27 was “boring and inconsequential.”
“I believe it’s very constructive,” Mr. Reilly stated of the method. “It hones the candidates. Whoever would be the final nominee will probably be extra seasoned.”
The Occasions contacted practically the entire R.N.C.’s 168 members, however most of these publicly aligned with Mr. Trump didn’t reply. A couple of members, together with Tyler Bowyer of Arizona, Patti Lyman of Virginia and Roger Villere of Louisiana, told Politico that they noticed the debates as ineffective or had been ambivalent about them, however these members didn’t reply to Occasions inquiries.
The R.N.C. doesn’t pay for the debates. It sponsors them, and the prices are borne by the media corporations that host them.
In a press release earlier this week calling for the debates to be canceled, Mr. LaCivita and one other Trump adviser, Susie Wiles, recommended that the R.N.C. wanted to commit its cash to preventing election fraud as an alternative. Returning to Mr. Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, they claimed with no proof that the 2024 election can be stolen.
Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.
