NEW YORK _ The October presidential primary debates may be do-or-die for Bill de Blasio's quixotic campaign.
The New York mayor suggested Wednesday that he would likely suspend his bid for the White House if he doesn't land a spot on the debate stage next month.
De Blasio has until 11:59 p.m. Oct. 1 to meet polling and fundraising thresholds to make the cut. The same qualifications were in place for next week's debates, which he's missing, though the mayor said he hopes another month of polling and fundraising will put him on stage in mid-October.
"I wanted to get into the September debates; that wasn't possible," de Blasio said at an unrelated news conference at police headquarters on Wednesday. "The logical thing to say is ... I'm going to go and try to get into the October debates and if I can then I think that's a good reason to keep going forward and if I can't I think it's really tough to conceive of continuing."
To get in both the September and October debates, candidates had to earn at least 2% in four separate national or early-state polls. Their campaigns also had to have 130,000 unique donors and 400 individual contributors per state in at least 20 states.
De Blasio consistently polls around zero to 1% and had only about 6,700 individual donors as of June 30, when the most recent federal campaign filing period ended.
The mayor made debates in June and July because the thresholds were far lower.
