Rand Paul to boycott Thursday's GOP undercard debate

Rand Paul.
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

After Fox Business Network announced Rand Paul didn't qualify for the prime-time Republican presidential debate on Thursday, the senator from Kentucky rebuffed an invitation to attend the earlier debate.

Instead, Paul told The Washington Post, he plans to "take the debate to Iowa and New Hampshire." The "undercard" debate doesn't have as many viewers as the prime-time one, and Paul said he thinks the network has "made a mistake. 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."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.