Christie, Huckabee fail to make main stage at upcoming GOP debate

Paul and Kasich hang on in primetime, while Graham and Pataki gets bumped from the entire Nov. 10 event.

Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee failed to make the cut for the main stage at next week’s Fox Business Network/Wall Street Journal debate, a particularly harsh blow for the New Jersey governor who has struggled to gain traction in the presidential race after being seen as a rising GOP star in 2012.

The two Republican candidates failed to meet the 2.5 percent average polling threshold, meaning they’ll both be bumped to a 6 p.m. undercard debate on Tuesday, appearing alongside former Sen. Rick Santorum and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Christie and Huckabee weren’t the only ones to get bad news in the Fox Business lineup. Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Gov. George Pataki, and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore failed to register enough in four recent national polls to participate in the Nov. 10 event at all. They needed to get just 1 percent support in one of those polls. It will be Graham and Pataki’s first time not getting to participate.

Graham’s campaign fired off a statement, blasting the polling used to determine the lineup and saying they are “sincerely disappointed” in Fox Business and Wall Street Journal. “In the end, the biggest loser tonight is the American people and the Republican Presidential primary process that has been hijacked by news outlets,” Graham’s campaign manager Christian Ferry said in a statement.

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Source: Daniel Strauss and Hadas Gold , http://www.politico.com