What to Look for in Second GOP Debate Wednesday

It’s been nearly a month and a half since Republican candidates for their party’s presidential nomination set the tone for the race and began shaking out the 2016 field at the first debate in Cleveland. Only former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who was polling at just 1 percent, has since dropped out of the crowded field, which has nonetheless narrowed some in the interim.

The second prime time debate will include the same field of top 10 candidates, plus Carly Fiorina, who was widely seen as performing best in the "Happy Hour" debate of second-tier candidates that preceded the main event last month on Fox. Fiorina, who rose in the polls after the event, actually got CNN to change their rules in order for her to make the big-stage cut, arguing that their original criteria, which included polling data from before the first debate, didn’t accurately gauge current support levels.

Here are four things to watch on Wednesday:

The Happy Hour debate at 6 p.m. EST.

Though last time, most pundits wrote off the earlier event before it aired, it actually proved useful in dividing up the massive field and giving some candidates a chance they would not have gotten on the big stage. Candidates like Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker seemed to get lost among the many faces on the big stage, which may have been Fiorina’s fate had she made the first cut. Instead, she was able to stand out among a weak field of also-rans and propel herself into modest contention. Will another candidate make the same of that opportunity?

With Perry out and former Virginia Gov. Jim "who is he again“ Gilmore failing to even make the cut at what’s been lampooned as "the children’s table," that field has shrunken to only four candidates, which will give former PA Sen. Rick Santorum, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former New York Gov. George Pataki an opportunity to stand out. None of them performed particularly well last time out or are bringing any noticeable campaign momentum with them (none are polling higher than 1 percent), but at this stage of the game, they’re likely to fight like cornered rats in order to keep their campaigns alive.

Can Carly Climb?

On the backs of her last performance, Fiorina leapfrogged much of the field to go from beyond a long shot to a fringe contender (around 2 percent). She did so largely by giving clear and concise answers to the questions asked rather than trying to use each question as a chance to hit talking points on other pet issues, as was the case with many of the other candidates. But how will she fare on a bigger stage with better competition?

Campaigning becomes much more difficult once the rest of the field sees you as a contender. Few voters knew the first thing about Fiorina going into the primary season, but now that she’s on the radar, other candidates are taking aim at her questionable record as CEO of Hewlett Packard. While at the helm, Fiorina oversaw the company’s acquisition of Compaq, generally considered one of the worst corporate deals of the modern era. HP’s value plummeted under her direction, leading the company to layoff more than 30,000 employees while she was CEO.

Fiorina was pushed out by the board but was able to pop a $40 million golden parachute to soften the fall. The whole I made a boatload of money while running a company into the ground and leaving tens of thousands of Americans jobless narrative will be a pretty big liability considering the current public sentiment when it comes to both corporate greed and income inequality. Expect the other candidates (especially Donald Trump) to seize it.

Fiorina was also a top economic adviser to John McCain in his failed 2008 campaign for President. You might remember how poorly McCain did when talking about economic issues, like when he talked about how strong the economy was and argued for even more deregulation just as the banking collapse was beginning to get underway, sending the U.S. economy hurling toward the Great Recession. Two years later she made a run at Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. Despite the strong anti-Obama sentiment that was carrying Republicans to victory in that off-year election, Fiorina lost to one of the President’s closest allies in the Senate by double digits.

None of this suggests a shrewd political operative, and the fact that she doesn’t have any sort of real campaign apparatus in place doesn’t bode well for her either. Fiorina has been big on the notion that she’s a political outsider who detests career politicians, but the fact remains she worked on a presidential campaign in 2008, ran for Senate in 2010 and is now running for President. She simply can’t make that outsider claim the way Trump or Ben Carson can. While Fiorina may be a tempting pick for the bottom of the ticket–especially if Dems nominate Hilary–she seems an unlikely candidate for the party’s nomination. Unless she really shines on Wednesday, the wind will probably fall from her sails.

What’s Propelling Carson?

Carson is something of an enigma. The retired neurosurgeon is not doing much campaigning. He’s not raising or spending that much money. He hasn’t laid out any sort of comprehensive platform, and what he has said about policy has ranged from unspecific to incoherent. Carson’s main message is that he’s not a politician, doesn’t like the President (and especially Obamacare) and isn’t concerned with political correctness. That’s been enough to keep him climbing in the polls, and despite a very mediocre performance in the first debate, he’s now surged to second place–13 points behind Trump, but 12 ahead of Jeb Bush.

Carson’s success–not unlike Trump’s–might be best explained by voter frustration with the status quo and an all-time high in terms of an appetite for something different. This seems to very much be the year of the anti-candidate. Voters used to scare off when confronting unorthodox candidates, caving to the notion that experience and an understanding of the way government works were necessary qualities to govern. But the utter dysfunction that has plagued Washington for the last decade seems to have changed that for the time being. Voters seem to be open to almost anything, especially the notion that only something completely different from what we’re used to can bring about real change.

I can’t see Carson getting the nomination, but I also couldn’t see him getting this far. If he doesn’t win, he could be an effective bottom half of someone’s ticket. Not because he stands a great chance of bringing the party many African American votes, but because Carson, who is a practicing Seventh-day Adventist, is polling so well among those who describe themselves as deeply or moderately religious. Don’t forget how many votes Karl Rove was able to corral for George W. Bush in 2000 by energizing the evangelical vote.

Who will fall from contention?

A Washington Post poll released on Monday shows that it’s still a race between Trump and everyone else. Original presumptive nominee Jeb Bush only polling at 8 percent despite having far and away the biggest campaign war chest shows just how surprising this thing has been so far.

Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are the only others who are above 5 percent. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has one of the biggest name recognition factors in the field and was generally seen as performing quite well in the first debate, pulled only 1 percent as the New Jersey Port Authority scandal deepens. Not many people felt that candidates like Huckabee and Kasich had a real chance, but if once top-tier candidates like Christie, Walker and Sen. Rand Paul aren’t able to move the needle with this debate, their campaigns will immediately go to life support status in the eyes of most.

The prime time debate is scheduled for 8 p.m. EST on CNN live from the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California. The first Democratic Primary debate will be held October 16, also on CNN.