Perry 11th in poll averages, Christie, Kasich holding on to final spots | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Rick Perry is 11th in the latest unofficial poll averages of Republican presidential candidates, just below the top 10 plus ties who will qualify for Thursday’s Republican debate.

Fox News is using the average of five polls taken before 5 p.m. Tuesday. They won’t say which they’re using. But new surveys released Tuesday morning, by Bloomberg and CBS News, helped push the former Texas governor to 11th place.

Both surveys show real estate mogul Donald Trump far ahead, with Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, and Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, trailing.

If the two new polls are the final surveys before Fox decides what it’ll do, both MSNBC and Politico estimate that Perry is out. So are former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana; former business executive Carly Fiorina; George Pataki, former governor of New York, and Jim Gilmore, former governor of Virginia.

SIGN UP

The estimates show numbers nine and 10 are Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, and John Kasich, governor of Ohio.

The 10 will debate for two hours in Cleveland Thursday, starting at 9 p.m. The others can participate in a one hour forum starting at 5 p.m.

Here’s the top 10, as computed by MSNBC’s “First Read:”

Trump: 23.2 percent

Bush: 12.8 percent

Walker: 10.6 percent

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson: 6.6 percent

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, 6.6 percent

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, 6.2 percent.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, 5.2 percent

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, 4.8 percent.

Christie: 3.4 percent

Kasich: 2.8 percent.

Then come: Perry: 2 percent; Santorum: 1.4 percent; Jindal: 1.2 percent; Fiorina: 1 percent; Graham: 0.4 percent; Pataki: 0.2 percent and Gilmore: 0.2 percent.