Just because they're not planning to vote for a candidate doesn't mean they don't want to watch them onstage.
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| ASSOCIATED PRESS |
Republicans mostly don't mind having their first primetime debate capped at 10 candidates, but they'd prefer a slightly different lineup.
Fox News, which is hosting the debate on Thursday, chose the politicians receiving the most support in an average of recent surveys, with the remaining seven consigned to a separate forum. But a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, which instead directly asked Republicans to pick up to 10 different candidates they'd like to see debate, found slightly different results.
While they agree with the top eight contenders, rank-and-file Republicans say they'd swap out the two lowest-polling candidates included, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Instead, they'd rather watch two politicians who missed the cut: former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businesswoman Carly Fiorina.
Christie is disliked by a sizeable fraction of his own party, many of whom who don't see him as adequately conservative; Kasich, meanwhile, remains unknown to most in the GOP.
