Gov. Ron DeSantis was the only candidate willing to debate. Nikki Haley said she would participate only if it included Donald Trump, who refused again.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to the media in Greenville, SC on Tuesday.
Neither of the two Republican debates planned for the days before the New Hampshire primary will be happening.
CNN canceled the debate it was set to host because only one candidate agreed to participate, the network said on Wednesday, a day after ABC News did the same.
The CNN debate had been scheduled for Sunday, and the ABC News/WMUR debate for Thursday. CNN said it would host a town-hall event with Ms. Haley on Thursday instead, after hosting one with Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Tuesday.
Only Mr. DeSantis, who finished second in the Iowa caucuses, had said he would debate. Former President Donald J. Trump, who won Iowa overwhelmingly, has skipped every debate throughout the campaign. And Nikki Haley, the third-place finisher in Iowa, said on Tuesday that she would not do any more unless Mr. Trump participated.
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them,” Ms. Haley said on X. “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.”
Ms. Haley is trying to present the race as a two-person contest between her and Mr. Trump despite her third-place showing in Iowa. Her campaign has noted that Mr. DeSantis focused on Iowa largely to the exclusion of other states. He is polling far behind Ms. Haley in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Jan. 23, and in South Carolina, where Republicans vote on Feb. 24.
Mr. Trump, who is far ahead in polls of both states, has been uninterested in debating either of them. He has cast the race as over and himself as the inevitable nominee.
Maggie Astor covers politics for The New York Times, focusing on breaking news, policies, campaigns and how underrepresented or marginalized groups are affected by political systems. More about Maggie Astor
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Source: nytimes.com
