With Fox News Channel’s Republican debate coming up in less than a week, there has been plenty of speculation regarding how the stage will be arranged on August 6 in Cleveland at 8:50 p.m. ET. We all know that the prime time debate will be limited to the Top 10 candidates. But who? And where will they be located on the stage?
A recent Quinnipiac poll shows eight candidates appear to be locked in: Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson.
The final two spots will be a battle between Chris Christie, John Kasich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Bobby Jindal. We’ll find out on Tuesday on 5 p.m. ET when the Top 10 are finalized.
So, where will they stand? Candidates polling the highest will be in the middle and the others go to the side – with the top pollers closest to the center. The New York Times even discussed the placement of candidates, which we confirmed with Fox News. Essentially, podium placement has been the same for every recent debate of this nature.
There was a report in New York magazine about candidate placement and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow even mentioned the article on her show last night. Maddow said it was going to be the “Donald Trump show” because “Donald Trump, will apparently be in the center of the stage for the debate.” Maddow went on to ask Fox News “are you sure you want to run the presidential primary like this?”
The thing is, the debate process hasn’t changed in recent years. The process remains the same but that doesn’t stop talk and criticism leading up to the event. It might turn into the Donald Trump show, but that’s simply because he’s leading the polls.