Fox News on Tuesday announced the 10-person lineup for the first Republican presidential debate of the 2016 race, scheduled for 9 p.m. Thursday in Cleveland.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich managed to clinch the last two spots, while former Texas Gov. Rick Perry narrowly missed the cut but is still eligible to appear at a televised forum held Thursday afternoon.
Joining Christie and Kasich on the debate stage will be front-runner real estate mogul Donald Trump; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.
Because Trump polled the highest, he will stand front and center on the stage flanked on each side by lower-polling candidates.
To decide which candidates made the cut for the prime-time debate, Fox averaged the five most recent national polls of Republican primary voters.
The remaining second-tier contenders will be invited to participate in an earlier forum at 5 p.m., which along with Perry will likely include former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum; former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina; Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal; South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham; former New York Gov. George Pataki; and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore.
"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 evening," said Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus. "Republicans across the country will be able to choose which candidate has earned their support after hearing them talk through the issues."
Candidates who struggled to make the top 10 criticized Fox's qualifying criteria, which was based on national polls. They said that because the nomination is decided state-by-state, starting with the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, the selection process was flawed.
"National polls are meaningless in August," Santorum's campaign said in a statement, adding that the selection process is "incredibly flawed," reported USA Today.
Brad Todd, an adviser to the super PAC supporting Jindal, said, "The debate's gotten disproportionate attention - the real race is happening in Iowa and New Hampshire," reported The New York Times.
One little-known candidate, former IRS commissioner Mark Everson, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Monday challenging the method Fox is using, saying the news organization has not met two election law requirements found in Title 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations, as HNGN reported.
Political scientists and pollsters also argued that averaging national polls without considering their margins of error is flawed, reported Time.
The two-hour debate will be moderated by Fox News anchors Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, and candidates will have one minute to answer questions addressed to them, according to Bloomberg. Candidates who are called on will only be given 30 seconds for rebuttals, and if a candidate's name is invoked during someone else's answer, that candidate will be allotted time to respond.
