For the first time of the campaign season, the 10 Republican presidential candidates with the highest national poll numbers will appear on the same stage this week for Fox News’s primary debate.
Anticipation for the event is high with still some details unknown, like which polls Fox News will use to determine who makes the stage and whether Donald Trump will use his time to blow up on the competition.
But here’s what is known:
Poll release time:
Fox has said it will determine the 10 candidates to be included in the debate by looking at an average of recent national polls. The polls Fox uses will be named Tuesday evening. Even so, both Fox and CBS News have already released their own poll results from a recent survey that may shed light on who is likely to be excluded from the event.
Who is likely out:
In the CBS and Fox polls, Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum are all shown outside the top 10. The same goes for Lindsey Graham, George Pataki and Jim Gilmore. CBS’s poll also shows John Kasich out, though Fox’s shows him in. Both Fiorina and Jindal have essentially conceded that they will not be a part of this debate.
Debate format:
The moderators of the debate — they are Fox anchors Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier — have said publicly that candidates will be given one minute to answer direct questions and that individuals will be given 30 seconds for rebuttal if a contender challenges them by name. For the stage placement, the candidates polling highest will be placed in the center — it appears that will be Trump and Jeb Bush — and the rest will be placed on either side, moving out from the center in descending order of poll ranking. Also, there won’t be any opening statements from the candidates.
What the moderators will do:
In interviews, Wallace, Kelly and Baier have offered clues to indicate how they will perform and treat their roles as moderators in the debate.
In a Q&A with Washingtonian magazine, Baier shared his interrogation style. “Not to give away trade secrets,” he said, “but you’ve got to absorb some of the talking points [from the candidates] into the question: ‘Understanding that you feel X,Y, and Z.’ … You take it off the table at the beginning.”
“I certainly think my style is adversarial,” said Wallace in an interview published Monday by the Washington Post. He indicated that the moderators plan on pushing a confrontation between Bush and Trump.
Kelly, speaking with USA Today, said she’s also ready for Trump. “Trump is going to be front and center,” she said in an article published Monday. “Good or bad, he’s fascinating. He’s going to drive huge eyeballs to the debate. He’s a true celebrity. He commands an audience, for whatever reason. He’s interesting. He just is. Trump may be peaking early. Or it may be the beginning of something unstoppable.”
For the candidates who don’t make it:
Fox has set up a “forum” that will take place a few hours earlier in the evening for an additional seven candidates who do not make it onto the debate stage. Fox has released few details about what the “forum” will entail, outside of it lasting for an hour.
