A majority of voters say Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson should be allowed to participate in the first debate later this month, and nearly as many say the same for Green Party nominee Jill Stein, according to a poll released Thursday.
Fifty-two percent of registered voters think Mr. Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, should be included in the presidential debate on Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in New York, and 47 percent said the same of Ms. Stein, according to the Morning Consult poll.
Candidates must hit an average of at least 15 percent in a set of five recent national polls in order to receive an invitation to the debate.
In a four-way match-up, Mr. Johnson was at 9 percent and Ms. Stein was at 4 percent in a Fox News poll released Wednesday. Fox is one of the polls the Commission on Presidential Debates is using in its calculations.
The criteria is to be applied in mid-September.
In the Morning Consult poll, about four in 10 said they think Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will win the debate, compared to 31 percent who said Republican nominee Donald Trump will win and 30 percent who said they didn’t know or had no opinion.
