Former President Donald Trump is skipping tonight's GOP primary debate so what will the other candidates do? Political strategist Johnathan Harris weighs in.  

<div class="block">One of the first major milestones of the 2024 presidential election kicks off tonight. The first Republican primary debate will be <a href="https://cheddar.com/media/want-to-tune-in-for-the-first-gop-presidential-debate-heres-how-to-watch">airing tonight</a> on Fox News at 9 p.m. ET, but a pretty major name won&#39;t be on the stage. Former President Donald Trump is skipping the event even though he&#39;s far and away the frontrunner at this point. So what will the other candidates do? Political strategist Johnathan Harris weighs in.</div>

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What to Expect at the First 2024 Republican Presidential Primary Debate

Tonight is the first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 election season and eight candidates are expected to take the stage tonight in Milwaukee. The current front runner, former president Trump will not be among them. So joining us now with a preview of what to expect is political strategist, Jonathan Harris, Jonathan, we appreciate your time. What do you anticipate on tonight's stage? You know, it's hard to tell, it's going to be hard to tell. It's hard to tell whether, you know, they're going to address the elephant in the room, which is the elephant, not in the room, so to speak, which is Donald Trump and how much time they're going to spend addressing that or whether or not they're going to spend time actually talking about the issues. I know that there was a, there was a leaked campaign memo that said that DeSantis was going to be spending a lot of time talking about, you know, at least defending Trump from Chris Christie's attacks. So it's hard to, it's hard to really tell, it's hard to see where they're going to go. I can, I kind of anticipate that if what Chris Christie has been doing, leading up to this debate is any indication he will spend quite a bit of time criticizing Trump's record and kind of going in that direction. But as far as everyone else that's going to be difficult, so we have Chris Christie who is going to be criticizing President Trump, but he's not going to be there. How will his not being there affect the dynamics, Jonathan? It's interesting too because as much as Trump isn't going to be there, it's also in a way that he's not allowed to be there because one of the requirements from the RNC, they had a few other requirements as far as polling at 1% in at least three national polls. I think it was 40,000 unique donors, et cetera, et cetera. But one of those requirements was that you agree to, I think it was the Beat Biden pledge, which is essentially backing any candidate that gets the nomination and not running as a third party candidate and Trump has refused to do that. So as much as he's not showing up, he's also not meeting the rnc's requirements. And I think, you know, I think that there is a time, maybe not so far in the distant past where a candidate not showing up to a debate would have cost them dearly. It would have been almost seen as a disrespect to the voters. But I think now, you know, everything, nothing about this is normal. I think, you know, you have Trump being charged in four different jurisdictions. I think it was Chris Christie himself who said that by the end of the week you could have Trump out on in four different jurisdictions. You know. So it's hard to gauge because none of this is normal. I think it was a 538 poll. I want to make sure I have these numbers. Right. That has Trump leading at 54.1%. And the next closest candidate was Ron de Santis, who I think is 40 points behind it like 15.7%. So in a way, Trump almost doesn't have a thing to lose by not showing up in this kind of new normal that we have now. But I think at a different time, his absence would have hurt him dearly. So let's talk about this, Jonathan, obviously, the elephant in the room is Trump is not going to be there, but all of the other candidates will be who can have a chance to shine, who comes into the night with the most momentum. Well, according to I was saying, according to the polling, you've got Ron de Santis, sort of governor Ron De Santis at a distant distant second place with 15%. Everyone else is coming in in single digits again. That's according to the 538 polling, everyone else is coming in at single digits. So it's almost like they don't have anything to lose. And I think what we've seen a lot of times in the debate like that is, you know, people going for sound bites and almost attacking each other. So, as much as I think, uh, you know, Chris Christie is probably going to go after Trump and if that memo that leaked about Ron desantis, uh, is, is any indication he'll probably defend Trump, but they very well might go after each other. I know that we've got, uh, we've got, uh, Senator Tim Scott. We have Nikki Haley, we have, uh, Vivek Ramaswami, uh, who is, uh, a businessman. It would have been interesting to see, uh, maybe him do some arguing back and forth and, and maybe with, with Trump, at least over some of his business practices. But I think for the, for these candidates again, other than Disantis, they're all in single digits. So, you know, they might go after each other just to get a sound bitter to win.