Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, whose campaign has struggled for months to gain any traction, is set to suffer another blow.

In all likelihood, Paul will be relegated to the so-called "undercard" table at next week's GOP debate, hosted Dec. 15 by CNN.

CNN's criteria allows for three ways for candidates to make it into the primetime debate, but Paul is unlikely to qualify in any of those three ways. Candidates can either poll nationally at 3.5 percent, based on an average of recognized polls from Oct. 29-Dec. 13, they can poll at 4 percent in Iowa, or at 4 percent in New Hampshire.

So far in that time frame, using data from Real Clear Politics, Paul polls nationally at 2.7 percent. In Iowa, he's at 2.8 percent and in New Hampshire he's at 3.8 percent.

And unfortunately for Paul, the latest New Hampshire poll put him at 2 percent, a sign he's slipping in the state that gives him the best chance to make the primetime debate. In any subsequent polls, his numbers would need to dramatically increase to get an average at or above 4 percent.

Despite his poor numbers, a spokesman for Paul said the campaign is confident he'll make it.

"We expect several more polls to come out over next few days, just today Senator Paul was in fifth place in the latest national poll," the aide said. "We are confident he'll be on the main stage."

Until now, Paul has made it on stage for each of the main primetime debates. The primetime debates are considered to include the "top-tier" candidates and are seen by millions more viewers than the undercard debates, which take place earlier in the evening and are reserved for lower-polling candidates who don't meet the requirements to make it to the main event.

A drop into the undercard debate would be seen as a setback to Paul's bleeding campaign, though not necessarily a fatal shot.

Paul's GOP rival Chris Christie was also placed in an undercard slot at last month's debate, hosted by Fox Business Channel. But Christie appears ready to comfortably make the cut this time.

A spokesperson for CNN would not confirm to the Washington Examiner media desk how many spaces will be made available on stage for the primetime event next week.

An analysis of who would make the cut based on CNN's critieria now includes eight candidates: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Christ Christie and Carly Fiorina.

The undercard stage appears set to include Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

A spokesperson for the Paul campaign did not return a request for comment.