In less than 48 hours the next GOP debate airs on Fox News live from Detroit.

I wonder if Donald Trump will skip the debate.

After all, he did the skip the last FOX debate in January to avoid Megyn Kelly.

Conventional wisdom would dictate that he won’t skip another debate because it did cost him the Iowa Caucus and an argument could be made that he wouldn’t want to cost himself the Michigan Primary.

But there is one compelling reason that Trump would skip the debate other than to avoid Kelly. If he shows up, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz will target him as they did a week ago. But if Trump skips the debate then Rubio and Cruz will target and damage each other. Sure they’ll accuse him of dodging the debate, but sooner or later they would train their fire on each other and Trump would come away unscathed.

Given Trump’s unpredictable, volatile yet strategic nature one cannot discount such a scenario. We shall see.