It's No Surprise What Channel The Debate Is On

The 2016 campaign is in full swing now, and the channel showing the first GOP presidential debate will be Fox News. It's being held in Cleveland, and while there are 17 candidates currently officially running for the GOP nomination, only 10 will be participating in Thursday's showdown. That's because Fox News put some pretty stringent rules into place, allowing only the candidates who were polling highest as of 5 p.m. ET Tuesday to take part in the debate.

In addition to televising the first debate on its main news channel, Fox News will also broadcast the event online, on Fox News Radio, and via the Fox News app, just in case you need to have all of your devices tuned in to Republicans at once. The moderators will be regulars from Fox News' lineup: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace.

According to the rules, Thursday's debate will see Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and John Kasich all on stage at the main event. The other seven candidates will appear during a consolation prize-type of event: a debate before the main debate. That roster includes Rick Perry, Carly Fiorina, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore.

Rick Santorum's campaign wasn't happy about the way the participants in the debate were selected, according to CNN. His campaign manager issued a statement blasting Fox News for the way it was handled.

The idea that they left out the runner-up for the 2012 nomination, the former four-term governor of Texas, the governor of Louisiana, the first female Fortune 50 CEO, and the three-term senator from South Carolina due to polling seven months before a single vote is cast is preposterous.

But most of the other lower-tier candidates were less angry than Santorum, including Rick Perry, who took a more philosophical approach, tweeting that he was looking forward to the chance to debate serious ideas.

The debate is being held at the Quicken Loans Arena, known to locals as "the Q", which is where the GOP will meet next summer for the Republican National Convention.

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