What FOX, CNN Republican Debate Rules Mean for Candidates, and Voters

Fox News announced Wednesday night it will partner with Facebook to host the first Republican debate on Aug. 6 at the Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Though Republicans are expected to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 candidates — give or take a few — according to the rules, only the top 10 candidates will be allowed to take the stage at the event moderated by Fox anchors Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace.

In addition to their position in the RCP average of polls, candidates must have formally registered for a presidential campaign with the Federal Election Commission and have paid all necessary federal and state filing fees. For candidates who are excluded based on the five most recent national polls, Fox indicated it would give “additional coverage and airtime” during the day of the debate.

“We support and respect the decision Fox has made, which will match the greatest number of candidates we have ever had on a debate stage,” said Chairman Reince Priebus.

In the post-mortem GOP autopsy report conducted after the party’s 2012 loss, Republicans said the debate schedule caused the party to lose control of their message. Even though a total of 9 candidates participated in certain primary debates, it was concern over the left-leaning bias of the “mainstream” media during no fewer than 26 debates and forums that was paramount. Fox and CNN each held six formal debate, while NBC and CNBC held four. Liberal outlets MSNBC and Politico each held one, ironically at the Reagan Library. ABC held two and CBS held one. There were also seven “forums.”

It was a completely predictable quagmire and an equally predictable Republican bash-fest by so-called moderators. Chairman Priebus was bent on not repeating the same mistake in 2016, even going so far as to threaten to ban NBC and CNN if they chose to air a puff-piece, hour-long glamor special on Hillary Clinton.

“The committee chose to limit the number of debates, spread the debates across the country by sanctioning no more than one debate per state, allocate the debates over the course of seven months, include a larger conservative media presence and allow campaigns to know and plan for the debate schedule early,” the RNC said in a statement.

This time around, Fox will get three, to include one that will be televised on Fox Business, CNN will get to host two; NBC two, with one on CNBC; and the other two networks, ABC and CBS, will each get one.

However, they never planned for the number of candidates that are expected to announce this cycle, and no party has ever had more than 10 candidates on the stage at one time. Priebus only said publicly that he wanted to avoid the ridiculous number of debates, but privately he has been concerned with the number of debating candidates, and indicated limits such as Fox and CNN has imposed would be welcome.

CNN, who will host the second Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California on Sept. 16, has chosen to go with a two-tier model. Candidates polling in the top 10 will debate in their respective group, while the remaining candidates will debate each other in a group of candidates polling at 1 percent or higher. Further, CNN has said debate participants must have at least one paid campaign staffer in two of the early voting states and have had visited two of those states at least one time.

As of now, according to both the RCP average and PPD average of polls, the chief executive of the very important battleground state where the first debate will take place, Gov. John Kasich, would be excluded. The same is true of Carly Fiorina, who declared her candidacy earlier this month, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is forming an exploratory committee, and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is expected to announce his campaign next month. Along with Gov. Kasich, these hopefuls are all polling at or below 2 percent.

The 2012 runner-up, Rick Santorum, who will announce his candidacy in two weeks, is polling at just 2.3 percent, just behind Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 2.4 percent. If the debates were held today, they would barely make the cut. But the first debate is not for another two months, an eternity in the world of politics and duration of time that is likely to see another 5 candidates added to the list.

“By constructing and instituting a sound debate process, it will allow candidates to bring their ideas and vision to Americans in a timely and efficient way,” he said. “This schedule ensures we will have a robust discussion among our candidates while also allowing the candidates to focus their time engaging with Republican voters. It is exciting that Republicans will have such a large bench of candidates to choose from, and the sanctioned debate process ensures voters will have a chance to gain a chance to hear from them.”

Whether or not Mr. Priebus has solved one problem only to have missed the rise of an even larger problem, has yet to be seen. But for the debates to have offered voters any meaningful opportunity to make an informed decision, at all, he and the networks had no other choice.