Is Donald Trump trying to avoid the presidential debates?

For voters, the televised clashes between candidates can be a key part of the decision-making process. Mr Trump burnished his Republican primary successes – and TV network ratings – with a series of belligerent performances on the crowded GOP debate stage. But he did also skip two debates, including one that would have pitted him against just two opponents, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

Now, there is widespread speculation that the property mogul may seek to escape potential humiliation in a head-to-head with Hillary Clinton – speculation stoked by a Friday night tweet, in which Mr Trump claimed Ms Clinton and the Democrats were “trying to rig the debates.”

Mr Trump pointed out that two of the three autumn debates would clash with NFL games. But the same thing occurred in 2012, and the broadcast encounters between President Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney nonetheless received high ratings.

The alleged billionaire's accusations against the Democrats are both unfounded and nonsensical: the debate schedule was decided last year by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a non-partisan body comprised of Democrats and Republicans, which was created expressly to avoid any bias for or against candidates from either party.

On Saturday, the CPD issued a statement reiterating that it had “announced the number, dates and sites for the 2016 general election debates in September 2015,” and “did not consult with any political parties or campaigns in making these decisions.”

Some commentators saw Mr Trump’s tweet as the beginning of an attempt to build a case for why he should not participate in the debates at all - a complicated business, if he does not wish to be seen as cowardly.

Josh Marshall, editor of TalkingPointsMemo, predicted that Trump might argue for the inclusion in the debates of third-party candidates Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein. Both have so far failed to reach the CPD’s poll threshold of 15 per cent required to take part.

“Trump does better in multi-person debates than one-on-ones. They’re much less debates in any real sense. They're more like parallel taunt contests. And the format makes it easier to avoid policy detail,” Marshall wrote. “Trump didn’t so much debate in the Republican primaries as use them… to enact a series of dominance rituals at the expense of his opponents.”