Tonight’s GOP Debate Will Be a Battle of Insiders, Outsiders, and Afterthoughts

The top 11 — yes 11 — Republican presidential contenders will crowd the stage at the Ronald Reagan Library in tonight's second GOP primary debate, with each candidate trying to elbow their way ahead of the pack.

Here's the list of participants: Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich, Rand Paul, and Chris Christie. An earlier debate will also take place two hours before the main event for the lower-polling junior varsity candidates: Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, and Lindsey Graham.

Bill Whelan, a political commentator and fellow at the Hoover Institute, sees tonight's debate an outsider versus insider affair. He breaks the 11 candidates into three groups. Group one are the anti-establishment candidates: Trump, Carson, and Fiorina. None have held elected office; all enjoyed a steady rise in polls over the summer.

Group two includes Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Rand Paul — candidates that were expected to be frontrunners that have stalled at the starting line. "Each one here needs to light a fire under their campaigns for this debate to be a success," Whelan said.

The last group is made up of candidates who have failed to get any serious attention: Kasich, Huckabee, Christie, and Rubio.

As for the 6 o'clock JV candidates? "An afterthought," Whelan said.

The debate will be nearly an hour longer than the one last month, clocking in at two hours and 45 minutes. "What CNN is setting up is not so much a debate as it is an endurance test," Whelan said.

Don't fret if you miss tonight's debate — there are 10 more Republican sparring matches scheduled before March.

Here's what to watch for with each candidate:

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Donald Trump
The billionaire business tycoon is entering tonight's debate as the clear frontrunner — a recent New York Times/CBS poll showed him leading by double digits. He's gained a following with his blunt rejection of political correctness, sexist comments, and promise to make America's military so powerful "that no one is going to mess with us."

"I don't see him going out there and all of a sudden presenting some 13-point plan for restarting the economy or doing anything out of an ordinary candidate's playbook," said Whelan. "I think Trump will just keep on being Trump."

Ben Carson
Though he has no prior history in the Republican party (or any political party for that matter), the retired neurosurgeon recently slipped into second place, according to this week's New York Times/CBS poll. He's countered Trump's in-your-face campaign style with a low-key kindness, and used his rags-to-riches life story to boost his conservative credentials.

He's also running as a Washington outsider — someone only driven to the national political stage by the passage of Obama's Affordable Care Act. He first seized the political spotlight in 2013, when he delivered a widely publicized speech lambasting Obamacare.

Carly Fiorina
The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard has enjoyed a lift since her fine performance at last month's debate. Back then, she was was at the kid's table debate for low-polling candidates. But her success pushed her into the main event, and that means she'll be going face to face with Trump tonight. And Whelan said that could get ugly — especially after the Trump took a jab at her appearance in a Rolling Stone interview. "Look at that face!" he said. "Would anyone vote for that?"

Jeb Bush
Coming from the heart of the GOP establishment, Jeb Bush was once favored to win the nomination. But these days, he's polling at around 6 percent and under pressure tonight to reverse his downward spiral. Trump has criticized Bush as "low energy" and lacking inspiration. The former Florida governor will try to prove his opponent wrong with a forceful performance tonight, while also highlighting his experience as an elected executive — a rarity among the three other spotlight candidates who've never held elected office.

Scott Walker
Like Bush, the Wisconsin governor was once seen as a serious contender — until last month's universally-derided debate showing. Since then, he's sunk to just 2 percent favorability, according to a poll this week. Watch for him to try to find a way to recapture that faded momentum.

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Ted Cruz
The junior Senator from Texas has made a name for himself as a conservative constitutional law expert, ardent social conservative, and darling of the Tea Party unafraid to take on the Republican establishment (Cruz led the government shutdown in 2013). Cruz's candidacy has been middling in the polls, and hasn't gone up or down. But he'll try to light a spark tonight with skills he developed as a standout on Princeton's debate team.

Rand Paul
The Kentucky senator, known most for his staunch libertarianism, is gunning for Trump tonight. Speaking to CNN on Wednesday, Paul said Trump was a "fake conservative" and that the billionaire is "not the kind of person we want to be practicing the diplomacy of the United States." Whelan cautioned that Paul would be wise to focus less on Trump and more on the policies he is known for in the debate.

Mike Huckabee
Televangelist, bass player, FOX News talk show host, former Arkansas governor, and now a second-time presidential hopeful — Huckabee has had a varied career. He recently made news by offering to go to jail in place of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the grounds of religious freedom. But that's about all the media attention Huckabee has gotten on his second try for the White House.

John Kasich
Kasich is running on his track record as Ohio governor, where he has presided over a significant drop in unemployment. But his past in the private sector as an executive at Lehman Brothers may hurt his chances with low-income and middle class voters hit hard by the economic crisis. He was the managing director of the company's investment banking division from 2001 until its collapse in 2008.

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Marco Rubio
Rubio has been steadily slipping in the polls, even in his home state of Florida. A recent poll showed that 48 percent of residents in the Sunshine State wanted their senator to drop out of the race, and that only 10 percent of Florida Republicans viewed him favorably. Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said that "limited government helped make my family's dream come true in America." His tale of humble beginnings earned him the title of "the Tea Party Crown Prince." Prior to the last debate, Rubio skeptics had written him off.

Chris Christie
Moderators asked 20 questions in the first Republican debate before calling on the New Jersey governor — something he was not pleased about. In an appearance on NBC's The Tonight Show on Monday, Christie told host Jimmy Fallon he would "go nuclear" if he's ignored again. Christie announced his candidacy in June, in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal. But lately, he's taken the moral high ground in an effort to set himself apart from the Jeb Bush-Donald Trump food fight. Christie told Kelly that his main strategy in Wednesday's debate is to just "be himself."

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