The Commission on Presidential Debates announced that the two 3rd-party candidates, Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein, will not make the cut for the first Presidential debate set for Sept. 26 and the only VP debate set for Oct. 4.
One of the criteria was that all candidates needed to be polling at 15 percent in these five polls as of Thursday.
Among those polls Hillary Clinton was at 43 percent, Donald Trump was at 40.4 percent, Johnson had 8.4 percent and Stein averaged 3.2 percent.
Accordingly, Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, and Donald Trump and his running mate, Mike Pence, qualify to participate in the Sept. 26 presidential debate and the Oct. 4 vice-presidential debate, respectively. No other candidates satisfied the criteria for inclusion in the Sept. 26 and Oct. 4 debates.
Johnson and Stein could still qualify for the second and third presidential debates.