Miami mayor announces he has cleared donor threshold to make GOP debate

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez on Tuesday announced that he had reached the number of unique donors necessary to appear on the Republican debate stage.

"I am extremely pleased to announce that my campaign has today passed the 40,000 unique donor threshold set by the [GOP] to make the debate stage," he tweeted. "In less than six weeks my team and I have quite literally gone from zero to a hundred and we are confident that I will be on the debate stage in two weeks."

"If my party wants to beat Joe Biden, then we need to build a bigger and better tent, and I believe I can attract the Hispanic and suburban voters pivotal to winning back Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania that no other candidate can," he continued. "I've done it in Miami, having won with 85% of the vote in a city that voted for Hillary Clinton by 30-points—and it's time we do the same for America. It's time we get started."

Suarez has not yet cleared the polling threshold, which requires candidates to earn 1% in an array of either three national polls or two national polls and two polls from a handful of select primary states. He did not comment on the requirement that candidates obtain at least 200 donors from at least 20 states each.

His claim to have met the donor threshold follows former Vice President Mike Pence's announcement on Monday that he had met the donor threshold to appear in the Aug. 23 debate. Pence had already met the polling threshold.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.