Just ten days remain until the 2016 GOP presidential candidates converge on the University of Houston for their next debate. It will be the final such match up before Super Tuesday — March 1 — when nearly a quarter of the delegates to the Republican National Convention will be up for grabs.
The question of whether the university would get to host its first-ever presidential debate was up in the air for months. The Republican National Committee suspended its partnership with NBC News, the scheduled moderator of the Houston debate, back in October.
"We went through a very long process with NBC in the summer [of 2015] to become the selected host site for the debate," says Richie Hunter, the university's vice president for marketing, "and once CNN was named the media partner, we went through a similar process with them. Obviously, it was accelerated, but we still had to go through all of the same steps."
Just who will be on the Moores Opera House stage depends on voters in other states. Poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire knocked five Republicans and one Democrat out of the running. There are still two more contests, the South Carolina primary and the Nevada Caucus, before the Houston debate.
"In terms of what happens with a truncated stage, with fewer folks, is that there's a [greater] level of seriousness," says Joe Brettell, a Republican strategist with the Houston office of Fleishman Hillard. "We're getting down to where people are really evaluating the candidates as they speak for, ‘Hey, could I vote for this guy?'"
A strong performance at next week's debate may not be enough to win the Texas Republican primary, let alone sweep all of the Super Tuesday contests. But a weak showing could be costly. Just ask Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Most observers, including Rubio himself, blamed his near collapse in New Hampshire on his flubbing the last debate before the Granite State's primary.
NOTE: Tickets for the February 25 debate are available only through the Republican National Committee. The University of Houston has no tickets to distribute.
