They crowded the stage in New Hampshire for a debate-style face-off on Monday evening, at which Gov. Bobby Jindal joined 13 other GOP hopefuls running for the party nomination. But the jam-packed Republican field will be narrowed considerably for the first formal debate of the 2016 primary season later in the week.
Today, Fox News is set to announce which 10 presidential hopefuls can participate and the exclusive club will feature notable omissions. And with Republican primary voting set to begin in six months, The Associated Press reports that those who don’t qualify for Thursday’s nationally televised debate may struggle to stand out in the extraordinarily packed GOP contest.
“Thursday’s debate will be the first debate, not the last debate,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who all but conceded he wouldn’t qualify for Thursday’s affair, told The AP. “We’re getting larger and larger crowds, we’re moving up in the polls,” he told reporters after the New Hampshire forum. “We’re building a movement, our strategy is working—talking directly to voters.”
Jindal’s fate, like that of several Republican rivals, will rest in which polls Fox uses to determine the top 10 candidates. Several surveys have been released in recent days, with more expected today, whose margins could make a difference for candidates separated by 1 or 2 points.
For example, in Monmouth University’s survey released Monday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, at 3.2%, was the 10th candidate, just above the cutoff. After taking the margin of error into account, Monmouth noted that Kasich’s support could be as low as 1.5%, while almost any of the candidates who polled lower than him could be that high or higher.
