Perry’s out, but Cruz makes cut for first GOP debate

Rick Perry is out. John Kasich and Chris Christie are in.

The former Texas governor missed the cutoff for qualifying for Thursday’s nationally televised presidential debate, Fox News announced Tuesday. Only the top 10 in an average of national polls can participate.

Henry Barbour, a Republican National Committee member from Mississippi and a strategist for the Perry campaign, said, “It’s not the end of the world. The key is for Perry to perform well.”

Perry campaign manager Jeff Miller was blunter in his response and alluded to the media frenzy around Donald Trump: “We’re assuming we’re on the debate stage, as opposed to the clown stage. … We’ll get more time to really have a thoughtful discussion for the governor to lay out his vision for the country.”

Miller also downplayed the early polls that determined the debate field: “Anybody who’s paid attention to presidential politics over the last 20 years knows that polling at this point in time means absolutely nothing.”

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas did make the cut.

Trump, the New York business executive who has comfortable leads in most major polls, will get the center spot, since he’s the front-runner. He’ll join an array of Republican officeholders and some newcomers.

Those who made it, in order of poll standing, are Trump; Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor; Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor; Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor; Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon seeking elective office for the first time; Cruz; Marco Rubio, U.S. senator from Florida; Rand Paul, U.S. senator from Kentucky; Christie, the New Jersey governor; and Kasich, the Ohio governor.

Seven others, including Perry, can participate in a one-hour forum starting at 4 p.m. CDT Thursday. They include Lindsey Graham, U.S. senator from South Carolina; Carly Fiorina, a former business executive; Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana governor; George Pataki, the former New York governor; and Jim Gilmore, the former Virginia governor.

The debate, scheduled for 8 to 10 p.m. CDT at Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena, is the first in a monthly series of Republican debates. Fox News’ Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace will moderate. Fox and Facebook are presenting the debate.

The next debate will be held Sept. 16 at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

“Our field is the biggest and most diverse of any party in history, and I am glad to see that every one of those extremely qualified candidates will have the opportunity to participate on Thursday,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.

Selection process

With 17 announced candidates, debate sponsors have to find some way to cull the field. Fox, the broadcast sponsor for Thursday’s session, announced in the spring that 10 candidates would get to debate, picked based on who has the highest average standings in the five most recent national polls released by Tuesday evening.

Despite concern that the polls would vary widely, the most recent ones, including those released Tuesday morning by Bloomberg and CBS and Monday evening by Fox, all told pretty much the same story: Trump with a big lead, followed by Bush and Walker.

The main unanswered question over the last few days was who would be the odd man out among Kasich, Christie and Perry. In the end, the polls made clear that the Texan would lose.

Whether by coincidence or smart tactics, Kasich announced his candidacy last month, just in time to enjoy the usual announcement bounce in polls as the debaters were picked. The bounce is not much, but it was enough to put him ahead of one or both of the others in most recent surveys.

In the Fox poll, Kasich had support from 3 percent of GOP voters, tied with Christie. Perry lagged behind at 1 percent. The poll, of 475 voters nationwide who said they were likely to vote in a Republican primary, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The Bloomberg poll was broadly similar, although it showed Christie, Cruz and Kasich all tied at 4 percent for the last three slots. Perry lagged behind at 2 percent. The poll, of 500 GOP voters nationwide, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The CBS poll differed at the bottom of the field, with Christie at 3 percent holding the ninth slot while Perry tied with Jindal at 2 percent and Kasich had only 1 percent. It was conducted among 408 GOP primary voters and has a margin of error of 5 percentage points.

Fox also included polls by Monmouth University in New Jersey and Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

Because the differences among the bottom candidates all fell within the margins of error, the exact order was largely chance.

This report includes material from the Houston Chronicle and the Tribune Washington Bureau.

This story was originally published August 4, 2015 at 7:38 PM with the headline "Perry’s out, but Cruz makes cut for first GOP debate."