Donald Trump has the most to lose in Thursday night's GOP debate, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato says, but he thinks the real estate magnate-turned-primary front-runner is "going to surprise people."
"You're not going to see Donald Trump attacking this one and that one," the political analyst told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday. "He'll respond to attack if somebody goes after him. I don't think he will go after other people on the stage if he doesn't have to."
Sabato, though, doesn't think the debate will be "sweetness and light," but still, he bets "it's more positive than people think. Tomorrow is unusual holiday for us political junkies. We're expecting fireworks."
Meanwhile, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who on Tuesday was able to squeeze onto the debate stage, will be one person who will be able to build on the experience, said Sabato.
"Boy, is he lucky," Sabato told the program. "Hard work got him there, too. He squeaked into that debate, and he can build on it. He's got a lot of room to grow."
However, being that Kasich leads one of the nation's strongest swing states, it was vital that he got on the Cleveland debates' main stage, said Sabato, as "Republicans cannot win the presidency in the Electoral College without Ohio. Boy, is that an advantage for Gov. Kasich? He'll have to make the most of it."
Still, there are plenty of candidates the GOP leadership likely wishes could have been on the prime-time slot in the debates, but the one mostly likely leading the wish list is former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Sabato continued.
"She's the only woman candidate," he said. "Guess what? The Democrats probably, despite [Vice President Joe] Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders doing well in New Hampshire, the candidate is probably going to be Hillary Clinton. They would have liked to have had a woman on the stage leading the charge against Hillary Clinton."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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