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Seven Republican presidential contenders took the debate stage Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California with former President Donald Trump – who hasn’t yet appeared alongside his rivals onstage – as the party’s dominant front-runner.
The candidates frequently delved into policy and their differences on the issues, but the most attention-grabbing moments may be remembered as the personal attacks between the contenders.
Here are takeaways Wednesday’s debate.
Trump’s safe approach
Trump may have played it safe by avoiding the debates and deciding to enter the GOP race for 2024 as the incumbent candidate.
But it’s hard to see how missing Wednesday night’s contentious engagement would cost him anything in the eyes of party supporters.
Trump’s adversaries fired a few times at him. DeSantis criticized him for his spending deficit. Christie called him “Donald Duck” early in the evening for skipping the debate and declared in his closing remarks that he would vote Trump off the GOP’s island.
“This guy has not only divided our party – he’s divided families all over this country. He’s divided friends all over this country,” Christie said. “He needs to be voted off the island and he needs to be taken out of this process.”
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However, Trump largely escaped serious scrutiny of his four years in the Oval Office from a field of rivals courting voters who have largely positive views of his presidency.
Bad showing from DeSantis
DeSantis had an uneven performance from the middle of the stage, where he was first confronted by his Republican rivals in a serious debate—a position that is now much less solid than it was before the first debate in Milwaukee.
Despite rules that allowed candidates to respond if they were invoked, DeSantis let Fox slip to commercial break when Pence seemed to blame the governor for a jury decision to award a life sentence, not the death penalty, to the mass murderer in the Parkland high school shooting. (DeSantis opposed the decision and championed a law that made Florida the state with the lowest threshold to put someone on death row going forward.) Nor did he respond when Pence accused DeSantis of inflating Florida’s budget by 30% during his tenure.
He later let Scott get the last word on Florida’s Black history curriculum standards and struggled to defend himself when Haley – accurately – pointed out that he took steps to block fracking in Florida on his second day in office.
Before the first debate in Milwaukee, a top strategist for a pro-DeSantis super PAC told donors that “79% of the people tonight are going to watch the debate and turn it off after 19 minutes.”
By that measure, the Florida governor managed to first speak Wednesday night just in the nick of time – 16 minutes into the debate. And when he finally spoke, he continued the sharper attacks on the GOP front-runner that he has previewed in recent weeks.
Christie gets ‘Donald Duck’ trending on social media
Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey and Trump’s harshest adversary, criticized him once more for failing to complete the border wall and for increasing debt. Later, he addressed Trump while looking into the camera, saying, “Donald, I know you’re watching. You’re powerless to stop yourself. Because you’re frightened to stand on this stage and defend your record, you’re not here tonight. If you keep acting in that way, we’ll start referring to you as Donald Duck instead of Donald Trump.
Candidates deflect on striking union workers
As the United Auto Workers strike continues, the GOP candidates sidestepped whether they side with the workers’ demands or the companies, instead pivoting to Biden and friendlier issues like government spending and immigration.
“Joe Biden should not be on the picket line. He should be on the southern border, working to close our southern border,” said Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who didn’t disavow his earlier remarks that took a harsh line against the striking workers.
Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy said that he sympathizes with the workers but that their tactics were misdirected.
Abortion received little attention during the debate
The debate moderators made a point of discussing a variety of policy issues in depth, including immigration, the border, child care, crime, and unions in addition to the economy, energy, education, and China. The candidates generally had the same stance in many of those areas, but there were disagreements over particular strategies and techniques.
The moderators brought up abortion rights when they mentioned that three state referendums to restrict access to abortions had failed about 105 minutes into the 120-minute debate.
Since Roe v. Wade was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, abortion regulations have been returned to the states — a move hailed by conservatives. But voters across the country have repeatedly gone to the ballot box to defend abortion access and, in some swing states, they have said it’s a key issue and favor Democrats on it.
Republicans have acknowledged, publicly and privately, that the issue motivates their base while potentially posing risks in general elections.
