One day after candidates vying to challenge former President Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination debated for the fourth time, CNN announced it will host two more debates early next year in the first two states of the primary season: Iowa and New Hampshire.

Hours later, ABC News announced a New Hampshire Republican State Committee-sanctioned debate on Jan. 18, three days after the Iowa caucuses and five days before Granite Staters cast their ballots.

What You Need To Know

  • CNN announced Thursday they will host two more debates early next year in the first two states of the primary season: Iowa and New Hampshire

  • Hours later, ABC News announced a New Hampshire Republican State Committee-sanctioned debate on Jan. 18

  • CNN announced the first is scheduled on Jan. 10 prior to the Iowa caucuses and the second on Jan. 21 before the New Hampshire primary

  • The Iowa caucuses are on Jan. 15 and New Hampshire voters will have their say on Jan. 23

The CNN debates are not sanctioned by the Republican National Committee, which has previously barred candidates from participating in non-sanctioned debates if they want to participate in RNC-sponsored ones. A person familiar with the plans told The Associated Press that the RNC’s Debates Committee is discussing releasing candidates from prohibitions on participating in debates not approved by the party, but that decision has not yet been made.

ABC's debate, meanwhile, is "subject to RNC guidelines," said Chris Ager, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, in a statement.

"The New Hampshire Republican State Committee is looking forward to working with our partners at ABC News, WMUR and St. Anselm's College for a New Hampshire Republican presidential primary debate subject to RNC guidelines," Ager said.

CNN announced the first is scheduled on Jan. 10 prior to the Iowa caucuses and the second on Jan. 21 before the New Hampshire primary. The Iowa caucuses are on Jan. 15 and New Hampshire voters will have their say on Jan. 23.

The bar to qualify is the highest yet. The candidates left in the race not named Trump -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy -- will have to receive at least 10% in three national or Iowa polls of Republicans to participate. For New Hampshire, the same polling qualifications will be in place, but the top three finishers in Iowa will automatically qualify for the Granite State debate. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is still in the race, but has not qualified for a debate since the first one and his single-digit polling nationally and in early primary states suggest he is unlikely to pass the threshold for the CNN debates.

Trump, who holds 50 percentage point leads over the field nationally and over 25 point leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, would easily qualify, but has skipped every debate so far and has said he doesn’t plan on attending future ones.

DeSantis and Haley are the only Trump rivals to log double-digit support with frequency in Iowa and national polls, while Christie and Haley are averaging around 19% and 11% in New Hampshire on average. The polling windows close roughly a week before each debate. CNN listed roughly a dozen polls that would count for the campaigns’ qualifications.

DeSantis previewed the possibility of non-RNC debates on Thursday morning in an interview with conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt, expressing hope the field would narrow down to just him and Haley, who has caught up to DeSantis in the fight for a distant second place.

“I don’t know if the RNC is going to put [on the debates], but I don’t think they’re going to block it,” DeSantis said. “And it may just end up being a one-on-one debate. And of course if the former president is willing to debate, then I think doing three would be really, really good.”

With each successive debate, fewer and fewer people are watching, according to ratings data. The debate on Wednesday in Tuscaloosa, Ala., which aired on NewsNation, logged just 3.2 million television viewers, according to AdImpact Politics, a political advertising tracker. Each of the three previous ones -- which aired on Fox News, Fox Business and then NBC -- received over nine million television viewers.

A FiveThirtyEight/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 30% of Republican viewers thought DeSantis “performed best” at Wednesday’s debate, followed by 23% who thought Haley did. Respondents thought Christie and Ramaswamy performed the worst, to the tune of 31% and 37%, respectively.

The Iowa debate will be held at Drake University in Des Moines. The New Hampshire debate will be hosted by St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire.