Fox News Chooses Top Ten
| published August 4, 2015 |

By Thursday Review staff

As promised, and based on its largely undisclosed method of collating multiple polling sources, Fox News has announced the names of the ten candidates it will invite to appear on stage in Cleveland this week for the first major televised Republican debate.

Those ten candidates are: businessman and television personality Donald Trump, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, author and neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

Left out of the debate: former Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, former New York Governor George Pataki, and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.

That Gilmore, Jindal, Pataki and Fiorina were shunted aside in the most recent polling comes as no particular shock; some, like Jindal and Pataki were late arrivals to a field already overcrowded, while others, like Fiorina and Gilmore, have seen their campaigns largely fail to catch fire with potential voters. The surprise may be that Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham found themselves pushed out of the top ten in a race where the polling differences between the tenth and the eleventh runners-up could have been as close as one tenth of one percent.

As recently as last week, it was looking like bad news for Christie and Kasich. Chris Christie’s re-emergence in the middle tier is good news for a candidate whose campaign had plummeted from presumed front-runner status—after all, he was given one of the most prominent speaking slots at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa—to bottom tier also ran. Christie has been both optimistic and enthusiastic about his chances of making the final cut, and his ability to appear on stage this week in Cleveland resurrects his chances.

Kasich may be the surprise dark horse winner, with name-recognition still foundering in the low numbers as recently as two weeks ago. Like Christie, he now has an opportunity to shine on the same stage with top tier candidates like Trump, Bush and Walker.

For logistical reasons, Fox News—as well as other networks—had agreed last year to limit the number of candidates on stage to ten. CNN will use a method similar to Fox News’ to limit the total number of candidates when it hosts the next debate late this summer.

Related Thursday Review articles:

Immigration Was Hot Topic at New Hampshire Forum; R. Alan Clanton; Thursday Review; August 4, 2015.

First GOP Debate May Force Some to Sidelines; Thursday Review staff; Thursday Review; July 6, 2015.

Jeb Bush, Out of the Box; R. Alan Clanton; Thursday Review; July 21, 2015.