Santorum Trashes Poll Requirement For First 2016 GOP Debate

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) has a problem with a recently announced requirement that candidates must qualify for the first 2016 Republican presidential debate.

Fox News, which is hosting the first debate, announced on Wednesday that it would require candidates to qualify in the top ten of an average of the most recent national polls. There are expected to be 16 candidates by the time of Fox’s August 4th debate.

Santorum has signaled strong interest in running for president again in
2016. If he were to run, polls today indicate he would not qualify for the first debate. Others who would be left out, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the requirement, are John Kasich, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, and George Pataki.

Santorum pointed out that even though he became the runner-up behind Mitt Romney in the 2012 GOP primary, he was polling in the lower half of the field for much of the cycle.

“In January of 2012, I was at 4 percent in the national polls, and I won the Iowa caucuses,” Santorum said Thursday according to The New York Times. “I don’t know if I was last in the polls, but I was pretty close to last.”

“The idea that a national poll has any relationship to the viability of a candidate —ask Rudy Giuliani that, ask Phil Gramm that,” Santorum continued. Both Giuliani and Gramm struggled to gain traction when they ran for president in 2008 and 1996, respectively. “You can go down the list of folks who were doing real well in national polls and didn’t win a single state and were not a viable candidate.”