New qualification rules could keep a third-party candidate elected in the July primary from participating in the Citizen Clean Elections Commission’s U.S. Senate debate.
Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego have confirmed they will participate in Clean Elections’ debate, scheduled for Oct. 9. But Green Party candidate Eduardo Quintana, who ran a successful primary write-in campaign, could be kept out of the debate due to requirements adopted by the Clean Elections Commission and its debate partner, the Arizona Media Association this year.
Green Party CD6 candidate Athena Eastwood also doesn’t qualify for a Clean Elections debate under the current rules.
To be eligible for a general election debate, candidates must have received at least 1% of the total ballots cast in all primaries for that office, said Chris Kline, president and CEO of the Arizona Media Association.
That equates to roughly 12,400 votes for U.S. Senate candidates, well above the 282 write-in votes Quintana received this year.
That hasn’t stopped Quintana from calling on Clean Elections to include him in the debate.
“I’m a qualified candidate that will be on the ballot, same as Gallego and Lake,” he wrote on social media. “I have every right to be there and for voters to hear me debate.”
The 1% rule is a new requirement this election cycle that wasn’t in place in 2022, the last time Arizonans cast ballots for U.S. Senate, when Libertarian Marc Victor shared the stage with Democrat Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters. That year, Victor received 3,065 votes in the primary, about 0.22% of the 1.4 million total ballots cast in U.S. Senate primaries.
Quintana has found an ally in Lake, the Republican nominee, who contacted the debate hosts to ask that Quintana be included in the debate.
“The Green Party’s nominee for U.S. Senate Eduardo Quintana will be on the ballot in November, and I believe we need to ensure that every candidate and every voter is heard and respected,” Lake said in a statement.
It’s unclear whether that will be enough to put Quintana on the debate stage.
“That is something we are navigating right now,” Kline said.
The Gallego campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
“We are reaching out to the Gallego campaign and trying to navigate where they are,” Kline said.
He said the debate hosts are also in discussions with stakeholders to determine how a change in the rules would impact the U.S. Senate debate and other races, and he hopes to have a determination by the end of the week.
Third-party candidates like Quintana could affect the results of tight races in Arizona. In 2018, Green Party candidate Angela Green picked up 57,000 votes in the U.S. Senate race Sen. Kyrsten Sinema won by 56,000 votes.
