REUTERS/Chris Keane
U.S. Republican presidential candidate and Senator Rand Paul speaks during the Heritage Action for America presidential candidate forum in Greenville, South Carolina on September 18, 2015.
Roughly two hours into the debate, protesters at the venue in North Charleston, South Carolina, broke into a chant in support of Paul.
"We want Rand! We want Rand!" the supporters chanted.
Moderator Neil Cavuto responded with a puzzled look.
"All right," he said.
Paul's average in recent polls was not high enough to allow him to qualify for Thursday's debate. Despite lobbying from Paul's campaign this week after a late poll raised his average and put the senator over the threshold needed to qualify, Fox Business did alter its rules.
Though the senator turned down an opportunity to appear in the early Republican debate, his decision to skip the seemed to pay off.
Paul's numerous appearances on television shows in New York over the past several days allowed him to get in front of far more viewers than Paul would have likely garnered if he appeared in the lower-tier debate. And Paul's decision spend the debate Periscoping himself on Twitter answering voter questions helped him gain the second most amount of Twitter followers halfway through the debate.