Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2023 August 11

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August 11

Has anyone won the Republican nomination without attending any debates?

Hello fine folks! So, it appears to be not out of the realm of possibility that Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination for president in 2024. It's also possible that he won't participate in any debates. If that happens, will it be the first time that has happened in American history? Or at least "modern history"?

TheRiseOfSkittlez (talk) 18:14, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

From United_States_presidential_debates#Presidential_debate_history, it's interesting that presidential debates don't seem to have been a consistent feature of the campaign until 1976. According to Republican Party presidential debates, those started regularly occurring only from 1980. They didn't happen in 1984, 1992, or 2004, when an incumbent president was running for re-election. There were 2020 Republican Party presidential debates organized without the RNC, and Donald Trump as incumbent president did not participate. So I suppose you'd have to restrict it to primary contests starting in 1980 in which there wasn't a Republican incumbent, which leaves only seven examples. There will be official 2024 Republican Party presidential debates and forums, so it would at least be unusual for Trump not to attend any of them, but there isn't really that much prior history to draw on (and you could perhaps argue that Trump relates to his party more like an incumbent than a challenger). --Amble (talk) 18:32, 11 August 2023 (UTC)