Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has qualified for the main stage for Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, media sponsor CNN announced Sunday. The low-polling contender had been in danger of dropping from the main event to the undercard debate but will join eight other GOP candidates at the primetime debate in Las Vegas.

The Colorado Statesman is sponsoring a debate-watch party in cooperation with the Denver Metro Young Republicans from 5-10 p.m. on Tuesday at Capitol Cigars, 919 E. Colfax Ave., in Denver.The primetime debate starts at 7:30 p.m. and features real estate mogul Donald Trump Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Paul.

The undercard debate starts at 5 p.m. The candidates invited to participate include former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York Gov. George Pataki and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

To make the main stage, candidates had to score at least an average of 3.5 percent in recent national polls – a hurdle cleared by Trump, Cruz, Carson, Rubio and Bush – or poll at least 4 percent in Iowa or New Hampshire. Politico reported Sunday that its calculations put Paul below both of those thresholds, including the results of a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll released Saturday that had Paul at 3-percent support.

Cruz soared to the lead in the Iowa poll, jumping 21 points since the Register’s last poll, conducted in October, winning the support of 31 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers in the state. Trump was second with 21-percent support, followed by October’s Iowa frontrunner Carson at 13 percent and Rubio at 10 percent.

The Paul campaign on Saturday night issued a lengthy statement arguing that the candidate should be included on the main stage, noting that CNN had adjusted the rules for an August debate it sponsored in order to allow Fiorina at the top-tier event.

In addition to pointing out that Paul was polling among the top five in several recent national polls, his campaign maintained that Paul is running a “top-tier” nationwide campaign. “It is simply not consistent with facts to attempt to force the campaign off of the main debate stage,” the Paul campaign said.

As for the polling requirements, the Paul campaign statement said, “Rounding up should be applied. Polling margins are simply too wide to allow a quarter or half a point to determine the outcome.”

CNN didn’t explain why Paul made the cut or whether the network had tweaked its criteria.

Iowa holds its first-in-the-nation caucuses on Feb. 1, followed by the New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9 and contests in South Carolina and Nevada later in the month. Colorado Republicans attend caucuses around the state on Super Tuesday, March 1 – the same night as 11 other states vote in primaries or caucuses – but the state GOP decided earlier this year against holding a presidential straw poll at the meetings so that national convention delegates won’t have to be bound by the results.

Tuesday’s debate, held at The Venetian hotel and moderated by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, will be the fifth Republican presidential debate this cycle and the last one held this year. The next GOP debate is Jan. 14 in South Carolina on Fox Business Network.

Democratic presidential candidates have appeared together at just two debates so far with a third scheduled for Saturday night in New Hampshire. It starts at 6 p.m. Mountain Standard Time and will be broadcast by ABC.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com

Caricature of debate participants by Donkey Hotey via Flickr.com