Trump wins, DeSantis struggles, Haley shines, and everybody hates (or loves) Vivek

TRUMP WINS, DESANTIS STRUGGLES, HALEY SHINES, AND EVERYBODY HATES (OR LOVES) VIVEK. Milwaukee — Going in, former President Donald Trump’s view of the first Republican debate was that it would turn into a bunch of people fighting over second place, while Trump remained untouched and far ahead of the pack. The idea in the Trump camp was that if the former president skipped the debate, his absence would inevitably lead the other candidates to attack each other, bringing themselves down while Trump, and his big lead, remained unscathed.

That’s pretty much what happened at the Fiserv Forum Wednesday night. There were large segments of the debate in which the candidates sparred and sometimes fought and sometimes insulted each other, while Trump remained an unspoken and untouched presence. And when Fox News moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum turned the subject to Trump, whom Baier called “the elephant not in the room,” the debate turned even more contentious, but much of the conversation involved how much the candidates were inclined to defend Trump even after his four indictments.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), the leading candidate onstage, was clearly the most uncomfortable with the subject. He had a terrible moment when Baier asked the field, “If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party’s choice? Please raise your hand if you would.” Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy’s hand shot up. DeSantis hesitated, then glanced to his left to see Ramaswamy and then former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and then Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and then Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) all raise their hands. Only then did DeSantis tentatively raise his hand. To DeSantis’s right, former Vice President Mike Pence waited even longer to raise his hand, and the two clearly anti-Trump candidates, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, did not raise their hands. True or not, it looked like DeSantis was waiting to see what everyone else did before taking a position.

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Yes, DeSantis had some good moments. He rebelled at another raise-your-hand question about climate change and took control of the subject. But overall, two things happened that the DeSantis campaign did not anticipate. First, even though he leads the rest of the field in national polls, DeSantis was not the main target of attacks from the rest of the candidates, as he had predicted. And second, the climate change moment aside, DeSantis failed to seize control of the debate. A breakdown of how long each candidate spoke showed that Pence, Ramaswamy, and Christie all spoke longer than DeSantis, with Pence being particularly aggressive in keeping the microphone.

The short version is that the debate was DeSantis’s opportunity to break out from the field, and he did not take it.

One who did take the opportunity was Haley. Far down in the polls, fifth place in the field with the support of just 3.2% of Republican voters in national surveys, Haley made good use of a resume that ranges from a governorship to U.N. ambassador. Her most remembered moment was a dust-up with Ramaswamy, who, after Haley denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin and supported arming Ukraine, said, “I wish you well in your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon.” Haley, who is not on the board of either company, went off on Ramaswamy, listing what she said were his wrongheaded foreign policy positions. She then kept at him as he repeatedly tried, and failed, to get a word in edgewise. Then she ended with, “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows. It shows!” Ramaswamy was left sputtering and trying to explain.

Haley was also good on abortion — she and Pence had a debate that summarized differences among pro-life Republicans about how to proceed politically. And perhaps her best moment came when she praised Trump’s accomplishments — after all, he was the president who made her U.N. ambassador — but argued that it is “time for a new generational conservative leader.” Does the country really want a general election choice between 82-year-old President Joe Biden and 78-year-old Trump? “We have to look at the fact that three-quarters of Americans don’t want a rematch between Trump and Biden,” Haley said. “And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can’t win a general election that way.”

Haley’s encounter with Ramaswamy was just one of Ramaswamy’s fights Wednesday night. Ramaswamy, who with his other strengths is a veritable talking machine, came to Milwaukee with a big show, holding a “Revolution” party the night before the debate. Onstage, Ramaswamy began by lifting a line from former President Barack Obama, saying that uninitiated voters might be wondering, “Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name?” After that, Ramaswamy showed that he can be both an interesting, provocative candidate and a complete jerk. The peak moment was when the candidates were asked about climate change and Ramaswamy said, “I’m the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for, so I can say this: The climate change agenda is a hoax.”

Accusing all your fellow candidates of corruption and claiming unique purity for yourself is not a way to start a serious discussion of an issue. (Especially since on the specific issue at hand, climate, most of the other candidates basically agreed with Ramaswamy.) Ramaswamy continued the insult routine with Haley and then with everyone else — he treated Pence as if the former representative, governor, and vice president just didn’t understand government. In remarks after the debate, Ramaswamy said his manner simply showed he is not a professional politician and that he stands out in a field of liars and squishes. The others onstage, he said, will “say anything, even when it’s outright false,” leaving Ramaswamy feeling like “I was onstage with Joe Biden and Liz Cheney.”

Christie ran out of patience with Ramaswamy early on. “Hold on, hold on,” he said. “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT. He stands up here, and the last person in one of these debates who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama. And I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur tendencies tonight.”

By the end of the debate, there was little doubt that all the candidates loathed Ramaswamy. The bigger question, though, was what did the voters think? In an earlier newsletter, I noted that huge majorities, over 60%, of voters did not know enough about Ramaswamy to say whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. Now, after a two-hour debate, many of them know a lot more. And the early indications, from TV focus groups, man-on-the-street interviews, and internet surveys, are that some voters, perhaps many voters, liked what they heard from Ramaswamy.

Will the debate change the race? Yes, it marked the beginning of a new stage in the campaign, but will the new stage be new and different? The answer is, probably not. It could be that the debate, for all the talking and insulting, did not make any fundamental difference at all in the race.

Certainly the Trump camp feels that way. After the debate, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of the former president’s surrogates, was a happy man. He was particularly happy with Ramaswamy, the most pro-Trump candidate in a pro-Trump field. “It almost seemed like at every point in the debate, a different candidate tried to tangle with Ramaswamy, and it was like they were putting a wet fork in an electric socket because he seemed to be giving as good as he got,” Gaetz said.

“Vivek won the debate,” Gaetz continued. “Ron DeSantis lost the debate, and probably President Trump does the best coming out of it because you saw nothing in this debate that is going to reshape the fundamental contours of this race — nothing at all.”

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