According to POLITICO's calculations, Rand Paul would likely have made the mainstage debate cut had that survey been released before Fox Business News made its announcement. | Getty Rand Paul: I won the debate last night

The winner of Thursday night's GOP debate? Rand Paul.

That's according to the candidate himself in a radio interview Friday, after he elected to skip the undercard event after missing the cut for the main stage.


"Well, you know the U.S. News and World Report did an online poll during the debate, and they said we won for skipping the debate and not being part of a farce," the Kentucky senator told Boston radio station WRKO, referring to the reader survey following the undercard debate. "So I'm going to have to stick with that. I think we won the debate."

(Donald Trump won the outlet's reader poll for the primetime event.)

Fox Business on Monday announced the slate of candidates based on an average of polls taken nationally, in Iowa and in New Hampshire. But two days later, Paul received 5 percent in a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll in Iowa, which was conducted in the same window as two other polls that factored into the average. According to POLITICO's calculations, Paul would likely have made the cut had that survey been released before the network made its announcement.