Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, the newest candidate to enter the race for the Democratic nomination, is bracing himself to be excluded from the party’s first debate next month because he has been left out of national polling.

To qualify for the debate Democratic candidates must earn at least 1% in three national polls in the six weeks before the debate. But Lessig, a political neophyte running a single-issue campaign based on campaign finance reform, said he can’t possibly compete if he is not being counted.

“There’s a catch-22 to the process,” Lessig said, adding: “It’s only fair to apply that standard if it’s actually being tested.”

Unlike the other five Democratic candidates who are routinely polled along with Vice-President Joe Biden, who is still contemplating entering the race, Lessig said he has only been included in one national poll so far – a September survey by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) that found 1% of likely Democratic primary voters supported the Harvard professor. The first debate is scheduled for 13 October in Nevada.

Lessig announced his candidacy earlier this month after promising to run if his exploratory committee raised $1m by Labor Day. He has taken a leave of absence from his position at Harvard to focus on his campaign.

Lessig is running an unconventional campaign focused on comprehensive campaign finance reform as well as “political gerrymandering”. His only previous political experience has been running the MayDay Pac, a Super Pac which backed candidates from both parties who supported campaign finance reform in 2014. Almost every candidate that his group backed lost.

If elected, the Harvard professor has said he would only serve as president for as long as it takes to pass the reforms he is championing through both houses of Congress. He will then immediately resign and let his vice-president assume office. The Democratic hopeful’s website currently has a poll to let voters decide who they want to be his vice-president.

Lessig said he plans to raise his concerns with the Democratic National Committee, which is already facing criticism over the number of presidential debates it has scheduled. He said the committee should tweak its standard to consider only polls that include declared Democratic candidates who meet the qualification standards.

Lessig added that with a field of only six declared candidates, he doesn’t understand why the DNC is limiting the debate, a concern other Democratic candidates have raised. He agrees that there should be qualifiers to join the debate, as according to the Federal Election Commission, 142 candidates have filed to run for president as Democrats in 2016 so far, but he said the current measure is not fair.

“The DNC should at least take the position that these media organizations should be including all announced candidates in their polling if [it’s] going to use that to exclude people from the debates,” Lessig said.

The DNC would not comment on Lessig’s request, but said there is still enough time for a candidate to qualify for the debate.

“The threshold is one agreed upon by the DNC and the networks,” said a DNC spokeswoman, Holly Shulman, “and it is within the six weeks leading up to the debate, so we are still in that period.”

Lessig said his campaign has also lobbied news and polling organizations to be included in their national surveys but has yet to receive any guarantees. He said he is also raising this with the DNC.

The Harvard professor has been including in a smattering of state polls. The latest Monmouth University sampling found Lessig was supported by 1% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire. He also earned 1% of likely Democratic primary voters in North Carolina, according to a PPP poll.

Despite these low poll numbers, Lessig insists that he has a path to victory and a niche to fill in the Democratic debate.

“My objective in being on the stage is not ... to be the ‘rent is too damn high’ guy,” Lessig said, referring to New Yorker Jimmy McMillan, who ran for mayor and governor on a platform of making rent more affordable. “I would be up there answering, on the merits, every single question that was asked but bringing it back constantly to a recognition of how a right answer cannot be achieved so long as this corrupting influence exists in our democratic system.”