Given what happened in the debate tonight, will Trump decide to go to the future ones?

[PoliticsWatcher1]

Or will he continue to skip debates?

[Zenobiyl]

Skip.

[dspNY]

Based on the caliber of Republican candidates on show, Trump can pretty much skip every Republican debate until it becomes 1 on 1

[Alben Barkley]

As I said in the debate thread, he won by not showing up. Absolutely nothing happened tonight to threaten his frontrunner status. Not even close.

Why would he join the clown show, entertaining as it might be?

[Ferguson97]

It would be a conflict of interest for him to attend the GOP vice presidential debates.

[Meatball Slayer]

Trump shouldn’t give any of these charlatans pretending to be real presidential candidates the light of day.

[Kevin Graham]

Nope

[Arizona Iced Tea]

The biggest threat to Trump on the debate stage imo isn't DeSantis, or Haley, or even Pence. Its actually Chris Christie believe it or not. He has 0% chance of becoming the nominee but that's not why he is running. If Trump goes on a debate stage with him, Chris Christie has nothing to lose and will attempt every shot he has to kamikaze Trump and will hold no punches back because there's no future for him in politics anyway. Trump manged to survive the 300lb NJ beast in 2016, but now with a comfortable lead in the primary and all eyes aimed on Trump, I don't see him ever getting on that stage as long as Christie is there.

If Christie leaves, I think there is a possibility Trump steps back on the stage. I'm sure the gop debate is a feeling he craves and would like to make an appearance and have some fun in the process. By that point it would really just be a few candidates left probably, Ramaswamy, Haley, Pence, and DeSantis and I could see Trump easily bring back that 2016 magic and put down the latter three for good once and for all.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Why bother? Ramaswamy has got him covered while not actually being able to surpass him and can take any of the real heat from the other candidates too.

[The Mikado]

I think he shows up...at the last pre-Iowa debate. Probably debate 5. By then, rather than 8 non Trumps it'll likely be ~5 and Trump won't have the "diminishing himself by standing on stage with Doug Burgum" optic problem. Plus, after several non-Trump debates people will be desperate to see him again.

[Sir Mohamed]

Based on the caliber of Republican candidates on show, Trump can pretty much skip every Republican debate until it becomes 1 on 1

This, though it might be over after he won IA and NH by massive margins.

[Consuming is good, it's what we're made for]

Only if Vivek starts to catch him in the polls, which is extremely unlikely.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

Only if Vivek starts to catch him in the polls, which is extremely unlikely.

Vivek will likely be #2 or very close though after this debate. He has gotten a lot of news coverage after the fact, which is what really matters.

[Duke 🇺🇸]

I need for him to attend any of them. Vivek is basically a Trump surrogate.

[Del Tachi]

He probably skips the next one, but I could see him joining the December or early 2024 debates. 

[Consuming is good, it's what we're made for]

Only if Vivek starts to catch him in the polls, which is extremely unlikely.

Vivek will likely be #2 or very close though after this debate. He has gotten a lot of news coverage after the fact, which is what really matters.

Yes, and the gap between 1st and 2nd is anywhere between 25 and 40 percent. That's not "catching" him. 2nd place is the 1st loser in this primary.

[The Mikado]

He probably skips the next one, but I could see him joining the December or early 2024 debates. 

Yes, I think some people here are confusing "Will Trump do the NEXT debate" (definitely not) with "Will Trump do ANY debates" (a much trickier question and one I lean yes on). Trump definitely won't be on stage in the September debate, I don't think there's any doubt about that.

[Del Tachi]

He probably skips the next one, but I could see him joining the December or early 2024 debates. 

Yes, I think some people here are confusing "Will Trump do the NEXT debate" (definitely not) with "Will Trump do ANY debates" (a much trickier question and one I lean yes on). Trump definitely won't be on stage in the September debate, I don't think there's any doubt about that.

Yeah, I really don't think Trump could get away without any primary debates, if only for the reason that Trump will inevitably feel like he's missing-out on some of the debate-driven news cycles that will be happening as the campaign develops.

He just likes the attention too much.   

[lakemich]

He'll only start to debate if his poll numbers suffer enough. If we get to December or January and another candidate is starting to catch up, I could see him jumping in (at that point there would probably be only a few qualifying candidates anyway).