It’s official: The first Republican presidential primary debate for the 2024 campaign is being hosted by Fox News in August.
Republican National Committee chairman Ronna McDaniel broke the news Wednesday on Fox & Friends, saying the debate will take place in Milwaukee.
In addition to being broadcast on Fox News, McDaniel added that the RNC would livestream the debate on Rumble, a streaming video platform that’s popular with fans of conservative politics.
“We’re also going to partner with some pretty exciting partners,” said McDaniel. “For the first time ever, we’re going to live stream on Rumble. We’re getting away from Big Tech. YouTube’s owned by Google. We’re going to have an RNC channel on Rumble. And then the Young Americas Foundation, which is run by Scott Walker, to really reach out to young voters. They’re based in Wisconsin, so they’re going to be a partner as well.”
Fox News getting dibs on the first Republican primary debate of the 2024 cycle was expected. The conservative-leaning cable newser hosted the first Republican primary debate of the 2016 campaign in Cleveland. That debate, held on August 6, 2015, ended up being the most-watched primary debate in cable TV history (roughly 24 million total viewers).
The first 2016 cycle debate was also unique in that it had to be split into two separate groupings of candidates because of the large number of Republicans seeking the party’s nomination that year. That won’t be an issue this year (at least not yet), as only a few candidates have jumped into the 2024 Republican presidential fray so far, including former President Donald Trump, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy Additionally, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) launched an exploratory committee for a 2024 presidential bid on Wednesday.
Others are expected to enter the race before August, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.