Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Monday that he will follow through on his promise not to participate in Fox Business’ Thursday night undercard debate.
The Kentucky senator, along with Carly Fiorina, lost his slot on the main stage for the next Republican presidential debate due to his low polling numbers.
“I think they’ve made a mistake,” Paul told the Washington Post on Monday evening. “I’m not willing to accept a designation as a minor campaign. We’ve raised $25 million. We’ve gotten on the ballot on every state. It’s kind of ridiculous to arbitrarily rate the campaigns based on national polling.”
Paul was not convinced that participating in the second-tier debate would raise his profile, and said he would rather focus on campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“I’m just not willing to accept that,” he told the Post. “We’re getting bigger crowds. Just this week, in New Hampshire, we had bigger crowds at the Exeter Town Hall than Bill Clinton.”
“It won’t take much for our supporters to understand why we’re doing this,” he added. “You want war? We’ll give it to you.”
