Who saw this coming? The Marist Institute for Public Opinion is temporarily suspending its national poll because they don’t want Fox News using it to determine who will and who won’t be invited to the top-ten 9 p.m. debate Thursday. (Candidates ranked 11th or lower are invited to a 5 p.m. earlier debate, expected to have a smaller audience.)

“It’s a problem when it’s shaping who gets to sit at the table,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute.
“It’s a bad use of public polls,” Miringoff said. “It asks public polls to have a precision that ignores the margin of error. There’s a big distinction made where there’s no statistical difference.”

I’d argue the bigger problem is sort of a chicken-and-egg phenomenon: National poll numbers at this point are heavily influenced by name recognition, and it’s hard for a little-known candidate to build name recognition without a chance to speak to a national television audience. What percentage of GOP primary voters have heard Carly Fiorina speak at any length? Bobby Jindal? John Kasich?

Even Republicans who have enjoyed past moments in the spotlight like Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham and Chris Christie have been largely forgotten by the past few month’s Trump-mania. Even if a network wants to make the quite reasonable argument that a substantive 17-participant debate is logistically impossible, how early should candidates be excluded for low levels of support?