Messam pleaded to get on Miami debate stage

Wayne Messam, the only Floridian among the 24 Democrats seeking their party’s presidential nomination, made a last-minute pitch for campaign contributions on Wednesday, telling supporters he still has a chance to get a coveted debate spot.

“It’s not too late, you can get me into the debate,” he wrote in several Twitter messages.

He’s up against a wall. Wednesday was the deadline for presidential candidates to show the Democratic National Committee that they meet the thresholds to get into the first debates, which will take place in Miami on June 26 and 27. The party will announce who gets in later in the week.

It doesn’t appear that Messam, the mayor of Miramar who announced his candidacy at the end of March, will make the cut. A total of 24 candidates are competing for debate slots, 10 on the first night and 10 on the second.

In one of his Wednesday morning tweets, Messam wrote:

“When other candidates are given nationally televised town halls, they meet the requirements for the debate. I’ve yet to be granted a CNN or Fox town, yet, I’m held to the same requirements. The question is why? My record as a mayor is as impressive and as worthy as the other 23.”

He followed up with a message that “It’s not too late, you can get me to the debate in June or July by giving right now today! Chip in $5 then share with your friends.”

The rules for the June and July debates require either polling at 1 percent or more in three different national surveys or polls of early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada), or showing broad financial support by raising money from at least 65,000 people, with at least 200 donors per state from 20 different states.

A campaign spokeswoman said by email Wednesday afternoon that the number of unique donors is fewer than 65,000 “but growing.”

Major opinion polls have been dismal for Messam.

He scored 0% in a nationwide Quinnipiac University Poll released Tuesday. He was among 14 who didn’t register in the Quinnipiac survey, but several of them have shown up in other polls.

In a poll of Iowa voters conducted for the Des Moines Register and CNN and released over the weekend, none of the people surveyed said Messam was their first or second choice. (The only other candidate who wasn’t picked by a single person polled was Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York.) Seven other candidates got so few that they were recorded at 0%. Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, the Miami rapper, producer and community activist, said Messam should be included in the debate.

“It would be a shame sir for you not to be on that stage,” he wrote to Messam on Twitter. He said it would be wrong to “bring a debate to South Florida and you disrespect a prominent mayor of the highest income city in South Florida for African Americans.”

On Monday, he told the Democratic Party that it would “turn off a lot of democratic voters here in South Florida if you do not have @WayneMessam the candidate from South Florida on that debate stage here in Miami.”

National news organizations have reported that 13 or 14 candidates qualify under both the debate and fundraising criteria, seven have met the polling requirement, and four haven’t met either.

Messam