Republican presidential hopefuls locked and loaded at the starting gate for ‘Fox News primary’
Vast field of presidential candidates narrowed down to 10 for cable network’s televised debate
Iowa and New Hampshire are still on the horizon – but first there’s the “Fox primary”, and the build-up to this week’s first Republican presidential debate shows that the influence of Fox News Channel on the GOP selection process is stronger than ever.
The musical chairs-like rules for participation in today’s televised debate require candidates to reach a certain threshold in opinion polls, making national exposure to an interested audience vital at a stage in the campaign when candidates are 8usually shaking hands in early primary states. And where better to find that audience than on Fox News Channel?
The 17 candidates made a total of 273 separate appearances on Fox News in May, June and July, according to a count by liberal-leaning group Media Matters for America.
Six hopefuls – Donald Trump, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry – have appeared 20 times or more each on Fox or Fox Business Channel.
“It is the most important forum for a Republican running for president,” said Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign and now an ABC News analyst.
The candidates on stage will be: Trump, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, former Arkansas governor Huckabee, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, US Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Paul, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
The remaining candidates will take part in a secondary forum that starts four hours earlier.
Those who missed the cut are former Texas governor Perry, former senator Rick Santorum, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Hewlett-Packard boss Fiorina, Senator Lindsey Graham, former New York governor George Pataki and former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore.
Trump, who is leading in the polls, leads in time spent on Fox – just under five hours, Media Matters said. Sean Hannity’s prime-time show, which hosted Trump, Ted Cruz and Chris Christie one night last week, has offered the candidates twice as much airtime as any other individual show, Media Matters said.
Part of the draw for candidates is the size of Fox’s audience: second only to shark-obsessed Discovery among cable networks in July and typically larger than that of CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time.
There’s also the guarantee of finding like-minded voters; 47 per cent of voters who described themselves as “consistently conservative” said Fox was their main source of news about government and politics, according to a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Centre.
“With the number of candidates we have, the gatekeeper becomes more powerful,” Dowd said. “If there were only three or four candidates running, the power would be less.”
Republican pollster Frank Luntz said of the Fox debate last month that “if you’re not on that stage, you’re irrelevant”.
Fox has said that it determined participation by averaging the results of the five most recent national opinion polls done by nationally recognised organisations. Since the network didn’t specify in advance the polls that it would be using, that led to grumbling that was encapsulated by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
“They’re going to look at the polls and [Fox News Chairman] Roger Ailes is going to pick whoever he wants,” Stewart said.
