Thursday night, Fox Business announced the lineup for upcoming Republican presidential debate sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. The debate will take place November 10.
The undercard debate has a few new additions — New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee. Christie and Huckabee will be joined by Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Not making the cut at all are former New York Gov. George Pataki, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore. A minimum of 1% polling average was required for the entry to the undercard debate.
The main stage debate will feature the 8 candidates with highest poll ratings.
As was previously announced, the 9:00 P.M. ET debate will feature candidates scoring 2.5% or higher based on an average of the four most recent national polls. The candidates achieving that are: Donald Trump (25.3%), Ben Carson (24.5%), Marco Rubio (11.8%), Ted Cruz (10.0%), Jeb Bush (5.5%), Carly Fiorina (3.0%), John Kasich (2.8%) and Rand Paul (2.5%).
Starting center stage at the first Republican debate, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been relegated to the corner where he’ll be hanging out with Ohio Governor John Kasich. Bush’s decision to attack fellow Floridian, Sen. Rubio, has only hurt the Governor’s struggling campaign.
Earlier today, Politico looked at how Bush’s suddenly negative campaign is directly contributing to a steady decline in the polls.
Most of those who say they are disappointed with the attack-Rubio tactics blame the campaign’s senior leadership – not Bush personally.One Republican who has worked for the Bush campaign said the staffers are taking Rubio’s bid for president personally, not professionally. Some have taken to calling Rubio “Judas,” a betrayer who should have deferred to the elder Republican, the source said, adding that the campaign’s upper-echelon isn’t listening to the numerous voices in the conservative movement and the Republican Party who have become increasingly disillusioned with the negative tone.“The campaign has been arrogant with donors, arrogant with staff, arrogant with Republicans, and arrogant with the media,” the source said. “And now look at where we are: isolated.”Worse yet for Bush, nearly all of the supporters who told POLITICO they are disappointed in his attack approach see Rubio as a viable alternative who would continue the tradition of conservative principles and policies that the former governor espoused when Rubio served simultaneously in the Florida Legislature. Already, they noted, Rubio is well ahead of Bush in national and state polls.“For a substantial portion of the DC crowd – and I think this probably goes beyond DC – Marco is well liked,” said one major Bush donor and fundraiser from Washington. “I don’t know necessarily what is gained by picking fights with people.”One reason the Bush campaign’s tactic has hit such a nerve is that, polls show, a high amount of Bush supporters favor Rubio as a second-choice candidate. And with Bush’s public support collapsing, many Republicans don’t want to see his campaign take Rubio down with it.
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