Fox News Lowers Threshold for Early Debate
When it comes to the GOP debate on Fox News Channel, there will be two debates back to back.
The main event will be in prime time and the so called losers debate will be at 5PM.
FNC had set a rule that even to be in the losers debate, participants had to reach at least 1 percent in polling.
Now Fox News has thrown that out and is pretty much letting everyone in.
The change lets candidates who were in danger of being disqualified from the first debate based on low polls – Carly Fiorina, former New York Gov. George Pataki and Sen. Lindsey Graham.
The announcement by Michael Clemente, Fox News Executive Vice President, News, means that all 16 announced candidates will qualify for Cleveland — either the 5 p.m. undercard, or the 9 p.m. main event.
The 9 p.m. debate will include the 10 candidates with the highest average in national polls, as determined by Fox News. The 5 p.m. forum will now include all the rest.
According to a POLITICO the prime-time participants today would be Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rick Perry.
H/T Politico