Republican presidential debate: What time it starts, how to watch and more

What time does the Republican debate start on Wednesday?

The debate is due to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Wednesday and run for two hours, taking place at the same arena that hosts home games for the Milwaukee Bucks and Marquette University’s men’s basketball team.

How can I watch the debate?

The clash is scheduled to air on Fox News and be available across all of Fox News Media’s platforms, such as the cable channel’s website and its Fox Nation service.

Fox News is accommodating cord-cutters by streaming the debate on its website for free, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

Fox’s parent company 
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and News Corp 
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 MarketWatch’s parent, share common ownership.

What can viewers expect?

The GOP’s White House hopefuls will to try to chip away at former President Donald Trump’s big advantage in their race, even as the frontrunner himself said he’ll skip the debate.

Trump has 55.8% support in primary polls, according to a RealClearPolitics moving average of surveys as of Monday. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a distant second with 14.9% support, followed by entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 7.0%, former Vice President Mike Pence at 4.4%, former ambassador Nikki Haley at 3.3% and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 3.1%, with other candidates polling at 3.0% or lower.

The Republican contenders who have qualified for the debate are Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Pence, Haley and Christie, along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

In addition, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson;  Perry Johnson, a former gubernatorial candidate in Michigan; and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said they have qualified, but it’s not clear yet if they will be on stage. And former Texas Rep. Will Hurd has come close to making the cut, but hadn’t done so as of Monday.

Fox stars Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum are slated to serve as the debate’s moderators.

Trump is expected to stage counterprogramming by releasing an interview on Wednesday night that he’s recorded with former Fox host Tucker Carlson.

The former president has grabbed the spotlight throughout August thanks to his widely followed indictments in Washington, D.C., and Georgia’s Fulton County in election-interference cases tied to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential race’s result. He has denied wrongdoing and argued the charges are politically motivated, as he did with his spring indictments in a hush-money case and a classified-documents case.

Many Republican voters have agreed with his take on his legal troubles and rallied around Trump in the past few months, leaving him with a 40-point lead in primary polls.

Read more: Here are the Republicans running for president in 2024, as their first debate nears

How has the market been doing?

U.S. stocks, as tracked by the S&P 500 index
SPX,
have fallen about 5% in August, hurt by factors such as Chinese economic weakness and signs of a strengthening American economy, which raises the risk of more interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.

See: Will August stock-market stumble turn into a rout? Here’s what to watch

Aiming to fight inflation, the U.S. central bank already has lifted rates to their highest level in more than two decades.

Related: Fed officials continue to worry about ‘significant upside inflation risks,’ minutes show

And read: Jackson Hole: Fed’s Powell could join rather than fight bond vigilantes as yields surge

Republicans in Congress have blasted President Joe Biden over what they’ve dubbed “Bidenflation,” while the Democratic incumbent and his cabinet officials have traveled around the U.S. talking up their responses to high prices, such as the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Even with this month’s drop, the S&P 500 is still up by a sizable amount for the year, with a gain of about 14%.