Updated list of who is in and out of first GOP debate (FOX Aug. 6)

[Mr. Morden]

Since Santorum, Fiorina, Graham, and Pataki have already announced, they can't really count on using an announcement bounce to save them.

Kasich, on the other hand, still has a shot at getting an announcement bounce that puts him in the top 10.  All he has to do is double his support. 

[Mr. Morden]

I forget, have they said what the cutoff date is for these polls?  Presumably they're not going to wait until the day before the debate to announce who's being invited.  Maybe they'll only include polls released by July 31st, or something like that.  I expect a flurry of polling in late July because of this.

[Mr. Morden]

I still think there's a chance that Kasich, as a "serious person", gets enough fawning media coverage from a campaign announcement that, combined with some favorable stories about establishment figures joining his campaign or what have you, he starts to get ~5% in the national polls.  Not saying it'll happen, but it's possible.  He has to nail his campaign rollout though, and he has to do it within the first ~10 days of July.

So yes, he *might* bump Perry out of the top 10, but otherwise I'd bet against the top 10 changing between now and the first debate.  Trump will obviously make it into the debate at this point.  Even if the Trump bubble were to deflate very quickly, he'll clearly be strong enough to remain in the top 10.

[Mr. Morden]

Breitbart.com of all places raises an interesting question:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/28/gop-presidential-debate-organizers-facing-mathematical-quandry/

Even if you accept the "top 10 from the most recent national polls" standard as legitimate, how much uncertainty is introduced just by margin of error and rounding, given how close all the candidates are?  What the chances that this set of criteria picks the "right" set of candidates, even given its own standards of how those people should be picked?

[Mr. Morden]

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-06/the-republican-debate-selection-process-is-a-new-wild-card-in-presidential-politics

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[Mr. Morden]

Why not just include all 16 candidates and expand the debate to 4 hours, with only a 5 minute break each hour for commercials in between ?

That would mean slightly more than 10 minutes talking time for each candidate.

Because nobody besides us, and probably not most of us, would watch a four hour debate. Plus, candidates would probably have to use the bathroom. Some of the older ones probably wouldn't be able to stand for four hours anyway.

Rick Perry would probably need a shot of his meds halfway through the debate.

[Mr. Morden]

I doubt it'll happen, but I would have liked for there to be a cross-party debate, so we could reenact this moment with the 2016 candidates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDTQyTffl8A

[Mr. Morden]

Questions being asked about whether candidates who haven't submitted their financial disclosure forms will be invited to the debate:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-party-debate.html?_r=0

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[Mr. Morden]

I really have to wonder how long these candidates who don't make it into either of the first two debates (and are relegated to the "kiddie" table forums instead) are going to bother continuing their campaigns.  I guess they could still figure that they can try to break out in either IA or NH even without getting any national media coverage?

[Mr. Morden]

And I still think Kasich has a shot at pulling out a last minute move into the top 10.  Everything depends on the media coverage he gets when he announces his candidacy next week.  There are some party elites who really have to make a hard decision about whether they see him as being the most electable candidate in the field.  If so, then next week would be a good time for some high profile endorsements.

[Mr. Morden]

Let's assume for a moment that the latest CNN poll and the new Quinnipiac poll are both in the "final five", with the remaining three polls yet to come.  Averaging those two polls together, we have:

Trump 19%
Bush 12.5%
Walker 11.5%
Cruz 6%
Paul 6%
Rubio 6%
Huckabee 5.5%
Carson 5%
Kasich 4.5%
Christie 3.5%
----------
Perry 2.5%
Jindal 2%
Santorum 1.5%

So looking quite good for Kasich.  The bounce he got out of his announcement may have been small, but just big enough to get him into the debate.

[Mr. Morden]

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/decisive-debate-polls-set-for-release-120790.html?hp=r3_4

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So the likely remaining polls are NBC/WSJ, Monmouth, and Fox?  Have any of those pollsters shown any kind of systematic house effect this cycle, skewing their results in favor of any particular candidate or type of candidate?

[Mr. Morden]

Will the percentages rounded up or not?

In that vein, what is the rule if two candidates are tied for 10th place?

They say that if there's a tie for 10th place, they'll just invite both the people who are tied, and have 11 candidates on stage.

But, AFAIK, they haven't explained if there will be rounding.  If the 10th place candidate is at 2.2% and the 11th place is at 1.9%, do they round both of those to 2% and say it's a tie?  I don't think they've explained that part yet.

[Mr. Morden]

If, as we're guessing, the final three national polls will be NBC/WSJ, Fox, and Monmouth, when do we expect them to come out?  I just looked up their normal timing.  NBC/WSJ tends to conduct polls from Sunday to Thursday, but doesn't release the results until either the following Sunday night or Monday.  So their poll is probably already done, but they're still preparing the public release for it, which we'll see on Sunday or Monday.

Monmouth tends to poll from Thursday to Sunday, and then releases the results the very next day, on Monday.  So I assume their poll is still in the field, and we'll get it on Monday.

Fox is less consistent, so I don't know what to expect.

As a reminder, the cutoff time for these polls to be released is Tuesday at 5pm.

[Mr. Morden]

NBC tends to release their polls in time for MTP on Sundays. Then I would bet Monmouth on Monday and Fox on Tuesday. 

And I guess the initial broadcast of Meet the Press is 9-10am on Sunday morning (so just over 8 hours from now)?

I guess we'll find out then if they have a new poll to show us.  From MTP's FB page, looks like both Carson and Trump will be interviewed this week, so presumably there will be some talk of polls.

[Mr. Morden]

Looks like Chuck Todd will also talk to both DNC and RNC chairs, so polling and the debates will surely come up:

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/sunday-mtp-debate-scramble-n401926

EDIT: Actually, they explicitly say that they will give the new NBC/WSJ poll numbers:

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[Mr. Morden]

Marist has suspended its primary poll to avoid being part of the debate criteria:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article29787529.html

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So we really are just looking at NBC/WSJ, Monmouth, and Fox at this point.  Meet the Press starts in an hour, and they'll supposedly give us the NBC/WSJ poll at that time.

[Mr. Morden]

Averaging CNN, Quinnipiac, and NBC/WSJ:

Trump 21.7%
Bush 13%
Walker 12.7%
Cruz 7%
Carson 6.7%
Paul 6%
Huckabee 5.7%
Rubio 5.7%
Kasich 4%
Christie 3.3%
-------
Perry 2.7%
Jindal 1.7%

Christie and Kasich in, Perry out.  Two polls to go, or at least that's what we're thinking.  Perry needs to lead Christie by an average of 1% or more in the final two polls in order to tie Christie for 10th place.  Unless they're just going to use rounding to let Perry in anyway, and have 11 people in the debate.

[Mr. Morden]

Averaging NBC/WSJ, Quinnipiac, CNN, and now Monmouth, we have:

Kasich 3.75%
Christie 3.5%
Perry 2.5%

Christie and Kasich will make it, and Perry will be left out...unless Perry beats either of the other two by at least five points in the Fox poll, or they get creative with rounding and say that he's "tied for 10th place".

The only thing that can save him at this point is if there's another poll out there that we're not aware of.

[Mr. Morden]

Fox will probably be happy if there's a full 1.0% difference between 10th and 11th place.  If they tried to exclude someone based on an 0.3% difference or something, they'd get a lot more criticism.

[Mr. Morden]

Assuming those are the only 2 left, Perry would need to lead Christie by 3 total in those 2 to tie him. Not impossible.

Yeah, I didn't know about the Selzer poll until reading Tender's post.  So Perry still has a chance…

[Mr. Morden]

Fox has to be relieved that the gap between 10th and 11th place is as large as it is.  Imagine if there were four candidates "tied" for 10th place, all within 0.5% of each other, or something like that.

[Mr. Morden]

Chuck Todd said on Today he's hearing that FOX is uneasy about decimals, so likelier than not there'll be an 11th podium.

There's no reason for an 11th podium, since the gap between 10th and 11th place is ~1%.  No decimals.  There's a smaller gap between 11th and 12th than there is between 10th and 11th.  If you're going to include Perry at #11, then why not also include Santorum at #12?

[Mr. Morden]

I hope the debate stage looks exactly like that, with a portal in the middle of the room (with US map and Fox logo hovering above it), that appears to lead out into space.  Whenever one candidate accuses another of wrongdoing, the two have a trial by combat, with the loser flying through the moon door into space, never to be heard from again.  (That way there'll be a spot for Rick Perry in the next debate.)