With a midnight deadline drawing near, billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer has a slim chance to force the third round of the Democratic presidential debates to be split into two nights — as some presidential hopefuls have blasted the entry requirements, saying they favor wealthier candidates.

The 62-year-old former hedge fund manager jumped into the race on July 9 — and hit the 130,000 qualifying donor threshold before the majority of the field, having spent the past years running attack ads against President Trump and collecting names and email addresses of like-minded people through his Need to Impeach website.

But in order to advance to next month’s Houston debates, Steyer must also get 2 percent or higher in four distinct polls, which must be approved by the Democratic National Committee, by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

He’s one shy of that threshold, and his chances took a hit as he failed to hit the 2 percent mark on two new national polls that were released Wednesday.

In a USA Today/Suffolk University poll, Steyer attracted less than 1 percent support. Meanwhile, he failed to even register in a Quinnipiac University poll.

So far, 10 Democratic hopefuls have secured a spot for the next debate: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Yang and Julián Castro.

Eleven candidates, including Steyer, are on the outside looking in.

If the field remains at 10, the next debate, hosted by ABC, will be held on Sept. 12. Should the group grow, the round will spill over into Sept. 13.

Several candidates who still haven’t qualified have been critical of the DNC’s debate rules.

One of them, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, earlier this month lashed out that Steyer paid his way to Houston — even though the day of the deadline, Steyer is still trying to secure a spot.

“I think the DNC rules were well-intentioned, but what it really has done is allowed a billionaire to buy a spot on the debate stage,” Bullock fumed.

“Grassroots support and elections are about people talking to people, not billionaires being able to spend a whole lot of money to buy Facebook ads.”

Another candidate currently left out, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, said last Friday the “process is stifling debate at a time when we need it most.”

Bennet said the debate rules reward “celebrity candidates” with millions of Twitter followers, billionaires who “buy their way onto the debate stage” and candidates who have been running for president for years.