The GOP prime-time field has been whittled down to the final ten for the first on-stage showdown of the 2016 contest. The selection criteria were somewhat controversial, relegating seven of the 17 Republican candidates to an earlier preliminary contest based on averages of major national polls.

The main event will be a two-hour slugfest starting at 9 pm EST moderated by three Fox News personalities Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace. The three are some of the sharpest cross-examiners in the news business.

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Each of the candidates will arrive for the Thursday night debate with unique questions they should answer for the voters on their records, style, ideology, and electability.

PoliZette breaks down the two questions we think each of these top-tier contenders (at least for the moment) should be asked during their first showdown on stage.
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Donald Trump

  1. You’ve said very little during the campaign about H1B visas or other sources of legal immigration to the United States. With approximately 8.3 million Americans out of work, are you in favor of expanding the foreign workforce in America by keeping the H1B program at current levels or expanding the number of visas issued?
  2. You have often complained that China is taking advantage of the United States. As a practical matter, what could a president of the United States do about this?

Scott Walker

  1. Do you believe that our current trade policy is good for American workers? If not, how would you change that policy?
  2. Can Republicans shrink federal spending and maintain an aggressive foreign policy at the same time?

Jeb Bush

  1. You say that you have a plan to grow the economy by 4 percent each year. Can you please explain why the economy did not grow by 4 percent each year when your father and brother were in the Oval Office?
  2. Your family is very close with the Clintons, and you, yourself, once gave an award to Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, you were not active in politics during President Obama’s first term, when the rest of the Republican Party was trying to stop Obamacare and roll back President Obama’s other proposals. Given these facts, why should Republican voters believe you will fight for conservative principles against Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic party?

Marco Rubio

  1. Would you support China’s becoming a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership? People said China would never become a member of WTO, and of course, it did.
  2. Recent polling data suggests that since the beginning of the year, Republican voters have become increasingly frustrated with the performance of Republicans in Congress. Should Republicans in the House and Senate be looking for new leadership?

Mike Huckabee

  1. You dropped out of politics to host a TV show and build a big house in Florida after winning eight states in 2008. Why didn’t you run for Senate in Florida where you had a much better chance at affecting the political debate than you have of winning the presidency?
  2. You have taken some heat for saying the Iran Nuclear Deal negotiated by the administration would “take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.” Do you stand by those remarks, do you believe the Holocaust an appropriate reference for the situation?

Ted Cruz

  1. Colleagues of yours in the Senate have been harshly critical of some of your positions and actions in Congress and purely motivated by a desire to politically grandstand. What would you say to those critics and what is a concrete accomplishment you can point to from your time in the Senate?
  2. Congress granted President Obama the authority to negotiate a free trade deal with Pacific Rim nations. The deal is a top legacy agenda item for Obama. You first supported granting the president that authority, penning an op-ed with lead sponsor in the House Rep. Paul Ryan R-WI, then voted against final passage. Was that move political or did your position truly change on TPA/TPP?

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Rand Paul

  1. If American military involvement — say the deployment of 10,000 rapid-response U.S. ground troops — could save the lives of tens of thousands of Christians and religious minorities in the Middle East and deal a strategic blow to ISIS, should we put those troops on the ground? If not, why not?
  2. There are candidates on this stage who have raised more than double the amount of campaign funds you have been able to pull in. Some have hauled in even more than that. How do you win the nomination with fewer resources?

John Kasich

  1. Are you a Bush Republican or a Reagan Republican? Explain your answer.
  2. When Republicans talk about exporting American values overseas, what values are they talking about? Constitutional right to abortion, gay marriage?

Chris Christie

  1. You’ve said in very clear terms you believe the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake. What factor known to the Bush administration at the time do you think should have played a larger role in determining a different course of action when the final decision to invade was made?
  2. You have been dogged by pundits pointing out that your favorability in New Jersey has dropped substantially this year, one recent poll from Monmouth University had your in-state approval figure at 36 percent, should that matter for voters considering whether to support you for president?

Ben Carson

  1. You are often described as mild mannered and have made comments yourself on the exhausting nature of campaigning for president. To use a cliched expression, do you have the “fire in your belly” to go the distance in this contest?
  2. You have made an important pillar of your campaign the notion that Republicans need to take their message to non-typical Republican constituencies. You have done campaign events in Detroit, in Baltimore and other cities since you entered this contest. Do you find any real openness to a conservative message in those traditionally Democratic strongholds and how would you as the nominee in a General Election contest actually change the entrenched partisan dynamic in those areas?

Follow @LifeZette on Twitter for live debate coverage and commentary from PoliZette staff Thursday Aug. 6th at 5pm and 9pm EST. 

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