new york miami mayor francis suarez said friday that he has qualified for next weeks republican presidential debate becoming the ninth white house hopeful to meet the fundraising and polling thresholds required to participate in the opening faceoff of the 2024 campaign suarez 45 and the only hispanic in the field will be perhaps the leastknown republican on the stage wednesday in milwaukee but with an audience expected of more than 10 million viewers he said the debate will give him equal footing to contrast his personality against his higherprofile opponents he argued that he is uniquely positioned to help the republican party reach out to hispanic and younger voters in particular oftentimes its not policy because we agree by and large about policy right its personality dynamism its the ability to connect he told the associated press in an interview confirming his debate attendance so far nine candidates say they have met the debate qualifications although former president donald trump has indicated he may not attend to qualify for the primetime debate candidates need to satisfy polling and donor requirements set by the republican national committee at least 1 in three highquality national polls or a mix of national and earlystate polls and a minimum of 40000 donors with 200 in 20 or more states suarez said he met the donor threshold earlier in the month and just hit the polling requirement since starting his campaign two months ago suarez has emerged as a fierce critic of florida gov ron desantis another presidential candidate while largely avoiding direct criticism of trump the mayor hinted he may do the same of the debate stage in fridays interview suarez dismissed questions about the latest trump indictment this one in georgia for alleged racketeering related to the 2020 election its not something voters are talking about he said before turning to his planned strategy for the debate from my perspective i want to spend as little amount of time talking about the former president hes capable of handling himself defending himself suarez indicated he would not shy away from questions about desantis specifically suarez referenced a trove of documents posted online this week by a prodesantis super political action committee offering detailed guidance for the governors debate strategy among other things one strategy memo outlined four basic mustdos they call for desantis to defend trump in absentia in response to a chris christie attack hammer vivek ramaswamy in a response state his own positive vision two to three times and attack president joe biden and the media three to five times christie is a former new jersey governor ramaswamy is biotech entrepreneur the poor guy cant get out of his own way you see the leaked memo its just one misstep after another suarez said of desantis suggesting that desantis divisive approach to leadership would be further exposed during the debate youve got to be able to create coalitions and youve got to bring people together the countrys broken divided how are