CNN announced on Tuesday that it has changed the criteria for its upcoming debate, making space for Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on the primetime stage.

Fiorina had argued for weeks that CNN's debate criteria unfairly weighted early field leaders over contenders like her who have polled better since the Fox News debate on Aug. 6.


According to CNN, any candidate who ranks in the top 10 between Aug. 6 and Sept. 10 will be included in the primetime debate on Sept. 16. Also allowed in the main show will be candidates who scored in the top 10 averages of all approved national polls between July 16 and Sept. 10, as the original criteria released in May stated. This means it is possible there will be more than 10 candidates on the primetime debate stage.

The new approach allows the network to avoid looking like it's favoring Fiorina at the expense of candidates such as Chris Christie and Rand Paul who would have been at risk of getting bumped to the earlier debate if CNN had more heavily weighted later polls, as Fiorina had suggested.

Still, CNN warned in an announcement that final podium placements won't be known until Sept. 10, after all national polls have come in.

"In the event that any candidate is polling in the top 10 in an average of approved national polls released between August 7th and September 10th, we will add those candidates to our top tier debate, even if those candidates did not poll in the top 10 in an average of approved national polls between July 16th and September 10th," CNN said in a statement. "We have discussed these changes with the Republican National Committee and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and they are fully supportive."

Despite weeks of statements claiming that there would be no change, CNN said they decided to change the criteria after learning that there would likely only be two more polls conducted before the Sept. 10 deadline.

The new format was announced in a conference call with representatives from all Republican campaigns on Tuesday afternoon, with sources on the call describing the change as a last-minute decision.

CNN also said in its statement: "We learned this week that there will likely be only two more polls by the deadline of September 10th. In a world where we expected there to be at least 15 national polls, based on historic precedent, it appears there will be only five. As a result, we now believe we should adjust the criteria to ensure the next debate best reflects the most current state of the national race."

RNC chairman Reince Priebus released his own statement saying that he supports the decision. "I applaud CNN for recognizing the historic nature of this debate and fully support the network's decision to amend their criteria," Priebus said.

He later said during an appearance on CNN that the network had made a judgment based on prior patterns that did not hold true, that there would be more polls closer to the deadline.

"By not altering the criteria to maybe exclude people who were counting on it, by adding a podium for anyone that might be in the top 10 but not otherwise meeting the criteria I think that the problem is solved and I think that was the right decision and they did the right thing," Priebus said.

According to a POLITICO calculation, in the three polls conducted since the first debate on Aug. 6, Fiorina is in seventh place, with an average of 5 percent.

CNN says they expect just two additional national polls will be released between now and the Sept. 10 deadline, making it difficult for Fiorina to fall out of the additional, post-debate top 10. (If Fiorina was at only 2 percent in the two forthcoming polls, she would still be in ninth place in this subsequent average.)

Fiorina was in the earlier "happy hour" debate during last month's Fox News debate, and delivered a standout performance that has fueled her bid to make it onto the primetime stage next time around. The CNN debate will similarly be split into two sessions, with a 6 p.m. undercard debate featuring any candidate who scored at least one percent in three recognized national polls, and a 9 p.m. main show.

On Twitter, Fiorina tweeted her gratitude, saying "THANKS TO YOU, we will be able to share our message of leadership and citizenship with Republican voters on the main debate stage." She followed the message with a second tweet: "…and thank you to @RealBenCarson and @realDonaldTrump who spoke out in support of a fair debate process."

Ben Carson also celebrated the move on Twitter, saying "Big win for We the People! Pleased to see @CarlyFiorina having an opportunity to have her voice heard at the debate."

In addition to the new criteria, campaigns were told that further decisions about format, such as opening and closing statements, will be made next week, according to a source who was on the call. Many campaigns on the call asked about tickets and credentials, since the debate will be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, which has a much smaller capacity than the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. At the moment, each campaign is limited to seven tickets per candidate.

Several of the lower-tiered candidates who were featured in the early debate expressed anger at the RNC for what they described as, at best careless, and at worst intentional, decisions that embarrassed them on national TV, such as having the debate in front of an empty arena. Unlike the first GOP debate, the early debate on CNN will be moderated by the same hosts and in front of a full audience.

Steve Shepard, Eliza Collins and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.

