ND Gov. Burgum (Unofficially) to Appear in Next Week’s 2nd GOP Presidential Debate .

The morning of August 23, RedState reported that it wasn’t exactly a sure thing that North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum would appear on the GOP presidential primary debate stage that evening after he was injured while playing basketball with some staffers: 

According to CNN’s Dana Bash, Burgum was rushed to a Milwaukee hospital today after playing a game of pick-up basketball with his staff.

Joe Cunningham included this tweet in his piece:

Breaking: North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum was taken to a Milwaukee emergency room Tuesday after suffering an injury while playing a game of pick-up basketball with his staff, making it unclear whether he will be able to stand for the debate tonight, a source familiar tells me

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) August 23, 2023

He also threw in a helpful mini-biography of the governor:

Before entering politics, Burgum was a businessman, establishing himself in the tech sector with a software company. He ran for governor of North Dakota and won, and has been fairly popular in his state. However, he still lacks prominence in the national arena, though his campaign was hoping to use tonight’s debate as a launch point.

As it turned out, Burgum was able to stick it out, standing during the entire debate. In case you missed it, read more of our coverage of Burgum in the debate here. 

He appeared to have turned some heads with how well he performed, getting that “launch point” his camp had hoped for. But as my colleague Andrew Malcolm noted in his VIP piece post-debate, “[n]ew stricter party fundraising and polling qualifications may bump out some of last week’s debate lineup, such as Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum” from the stage.

Burgum, though, might eke by for the second debate — which will take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, on Sept. 27 — according to Politico‘s number crunching. The update also shares the list of Republican primary candidates who have qualified thus far and a reminder of the Republican National Committee (RNC) rules to do so:

Burgum appears to have qualified for the second GOP debate, which is on Wednesday in California, according to POLITICO’s analysis. 

He is the eighth candidate to meet those qualifications, joining former President Donald Trump — who is not expected to participate — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessperson Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

To get on stage, candidates need to have 50,000 individual donors and hit 3 percent in a handful of polls that meet the Republican National Committee’s methodological requirements. 

Burgham seems to think he’ll qualify to take part, too:

Burgum’s campaign has said he has already met the donor mark, and he appears to have met the polling mark on Saturday when the Trafalgar Group — a GOP-aligned pollster — released a survey that had him at 3 percent nationally. He previously hit 3 percent in a Trafalgar survey in Iowa in August, and 4 percent in an New Hampshire survey from InsiderAdvantage, another conservative polling outlet, earlier this week.

But there’s no official word yet from the RNC on either his or Gov. Hutchinson’s status for Simi. As always, we’ll keep you posted.