The first debate was hosted by Fox News Channel , Facebook , and the Ohio Republican Party at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland , Ohio – the same location as the future 2016 Republican National Convention . The two-hour debate invited the 10 highest-polling candidates , as measured by the average of the top five national polls selected by Fox . In addition , all other candidates who were " consistently being offered " as choices in national polls were invited to a one-hour debate earlier that same day . ( Originally , the non-primetime debate had a minimum requirement that invitees were averaging at least 1 % in Fox-recognized national polls , and was to be aired at noon for a total of two hours in duration . ) The two-tiered debate hosted by Fox News on the 6th was qualitatively different from the C-SPAN forum held on the 3rd , for at least three reasons : it was a debate rather than a forum , where candidates were allowed to challenge each other , not just speak one at a time sequentially ; it was divided into two tiers based on national polling numbers , only a subset of the candidates were on-stage ( during each of the two distinct Fox News airtimes ) ; and finally , Donald Trump and Mike Huckabee were participants in the primetime tier , but did not appear at the C-SPAN forum
2016 Republican National Convention
2016 Republican National Convention
2016 Republican Party presidential debates and forums