Jill Stein And Gary Johnson Fail To Make First Debate

Unsurprising. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and Jill Stein of the Green Party have failed to qualify for the first general election debate, in a significant blow to their already long-shot presidential campaigns. The Commission on Presidential Debates said Friday that only Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton qualified to be on the stage at the Sept. 26 debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

The commission requires that candidates seeking to participate in the debates meet the eligibility requirement for president, have enough ballot access to win an Electoral College majority, and have at least 15% support of the national electorate in five predetermined marquee polls.

Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein meet the eligibility and ballot access requirements but neither has enough support in those five polls. The five polls used for debate entry are conducted by ABC-Washington Post, CBS-New York Times, CNN-ORC, Fox News and the NBC/Wall Street Journal. The commission calculated that Mr. Johnson had only 8.4% support in an average of the most recent polls, while Ms. Stein had only 3.2%.