WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidates on Sunday dismissed the dominance of Donald Trump in early primary polling as they worked to position themselves days before their first debate.
While candidates and their teams have spent hours privately strategizing how best to tackle the billionaire businessman in Thursday's debate, they publicly discounted the idea of Trump's rise even as a new poll showed the billionaire businessman continuing a summer surge.
"Anybody can do well for a month in this business, especially if you have talent and you have personality, and Donald does," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on CNN's State of the Union.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry signaled he'll focus on questioning Trump's Republican credentials, if he makes it onto the debate stage. Trump previously backed a single-payer health care system and abortion rights, in addition to praising President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in public remarks.
"When you look back at the positions that he has held, it is not in concert with conservatism," Perry said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. "I'm going to stand up for conservatism."
Trump, meanwhile, tried to lower expectations for his first debate appearance. "I'd like to discuss the issues. I'm not looking to take anybody out or be nasty to anybody," he said in an interview on NBC's Meet The Press.
"These politicians -- I always say, they're all talk, no action. They debate all the time," he said in an interview on ABC's This Week. "I don't debate." He also spoke by phone on CBS' Face the Nation.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday showed Trump as the first choice of GOP primary voters, followed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Fox News, host of the debate, intends to allow onstage only the 10 candidates who fare best in polling averages from the five most recent national public opinion surveys as of Tuesday evening. Candidates who do not qualify for the debate will be invited to participate in a forum to be aired on the afternoon of the debate.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said the Republican party shouldn't overlook support in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire in favor of national numbers.
"National polls mean nothing," he said in an interview on ABC's This Week. "Come February when it matters, not August, but come February, you know we'll be there."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of the candidates whose participation still hangs in the balance, said he's not worried.
"You know, I'll be very happy on Tuesday when the standings come out and I'm in there," the New Jersey governor said. "I'm confident I'll be there on Thursday night."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich downplayed the debate's importance on Fox News Sunday.
"This debate comes six months before the selection of a single delegate," he said. "What I've been focusing on is out there in the grass roots."
Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus defended the process developed by his party, saying holding nearly two dozen debates during the 2012 primary hurt their chances in the general election.
"The reality is -- and it might be a little harsh -- but you can't necessarily treat someone that's polling at 18 or 20 percent the same as someone that's polling at a half a percent or 1 percent," he said on ABC.
The McClatchy-Marist Poll said Sunday that it had temporarily suspended polling on primary voter choices out of concern that public polls are being misused to decide who will be in the debate and who will be excluded.
The Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducts the national survey, said the debate criteria assume too much precision in polls in drawing a line between candidates just a small fraction apart, presume that the national polls being averaged are comparable, and turn the media sponsoring most of the polls from analysts to participants.
In Southern California, five candidates spoke over the weekend at a retreat for donors to the education, policy and activist groups that billionaire industrialists Charles Koch and his brother David have spent years building up and funding.
Bush, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio spoke to about 450 business leaders Sunday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former technology executive Carly Fiorina took questions Saturday.
Also on Sunday, Trump's campaign said longtime campaign aide Sam Nunberg had been fired after racially charged Facebook posts surfaced on the aide's account.
The website Business Insider reported the posts Friday. They included a racial slur to describe the Rev. Al Sharpton's daughter and references to Obama as a "Socialist Marxist Islamo Fascist Nazi Appeaser" and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as "Huckahick."
Kasich criticized one of his aides Sunday for a Twitter post that compared Trump to a drunken driver.
"He won't be sending any more tweets like that," Kasich said of senior staff member John Weaver.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Lerer, Alicia Caldwell and Stacy Anderson of The Associated Press; by Ali Elkin of Bloomberg News; and by Steven Thomma of Tribune News Service.
A Section on 08/03/2015