MILWAUKEE — Eight Republicans took the stage Wednesday night, hoping for a breakout moment in their run for the White House.
Time will tell who gets a boost from their performance and who will surge in the polls, but several themes emerged throughout the night. Here are the top three.
UP FOR DEBATE: WHERE TRUMP, DESANTIS, AND REST OF REPUBLICAN 2024 FIELD STAND ON KEY ISSUES
Vivek, not DeSantis, has the target
Pundits expected Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to get most of the attention and attacks onstage due to his long-standing status as the second-placed candidate behind Donald Trump.
Instead, it was Vivek Ramaswamy who had the target on his back.
The 38-year-old entrepreneur came in polling at just 7% but was attacked like a front-runner, sparring in several one-on-one exchanges with candidates including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Pence, normally known for his calm demeanor, had perhaps the most notable exchanges with the young candidate.
“Now is not the time for on-the-job training,” Pence said to Ramaswamy. “We don’t need to bring in a rookie. We don’t need to bring in people with no experience.”
His comments quickly brought loud boos and jeers from the crowd inside Fiserv Forum, with Ramaswamy laughing at the jab.
“Now that everybody’s gotten their memorized, pre-prepared slogans out of the way, we can actually have a real discussion now,” Ramaswamy said.
Pence shot back, “Is that one of yours?”
Christie attacked Ramaswamy as well, though, at one point, he had to stop and wait for the crowd to stop booing him before he could finish. Once the moderators quieted the audience, Christie said Ramaswamy “sounds like ChatGPT” and compared him to a young Barack Obama.
Ramaswamy compared himself to a different politician: GOP icon former President Ronald Reagan.
“I do think we need someone of a different generation to move this country forward,” he said.
His campaign boasted afterward that “there’s blood on the floor, and it wasn’t Vivek’s.”
DeSantis drew applause for touting his anti-lockdown policies during the pandemic and for promising to secure the border, though the general lack of attention thrown his way could be seen as a sign the other candidates no longer view him as a threat.
DeSantis’s campaign stressed ahead of the debate that he wasn’t necessarily looking for a breakout moment, and Ken Cuccinelli, who leads a DeSantis super PAC, said in the spin room that the Florida governor “looked very presidential tonight.”
Haley knocked Ramaswamy’s upstart status by saying he has “no foreign policy experience, and it shows.”
But it was Pence who might have had the strongest attack, swiping at Trump, President Joe Biden, and Ramaswamy all in the same sentence.
“We don’t need a president who’s too old,” he said. “And we don’t need a president who’s too young.”
Abortion policy divides the field
This was the first presidential debate since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and candidates were pressed on abortion policy.
The question divided the field.
Haley emphasized a practical approach to the controversial procedure, saying that “we need to stop demonizing the issue” to find consensus on banning late-term abortions, encouraging adoption, and protecting healthcare providers who have objections to the procedure.
Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) took more forceful stances, with both saying they support a federal minimum standard of blocking abortion after 15 weeks gestation.
Others took an in-between approach. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson predicted individual states will tackle the topic but said the federal government can take it up as well. DeSantis said he supports a “culture of life” but did not explicitly state that he wants to see a national limit, while Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) also said it’s up to the states.
Democrats are already attacking the GOP over the issue. Party leaders held a press conference ahead of the debate heavy on pro-abortion rights messaging as they see the issue as a winner for their side.
But Haley suggested that Democrats have to answer for their abortion policies as well, specifically on whether they support any restrictions at all on the practice.
Front-runner Trump takes little heat from competitors
Like DeSantis, Trump was expected to see attacks throughout the evening as the runaway front-runner.
Instead, the first hour of the debate passed with few mentions of the former president. Christie and Hutchinson, the most vocal anti-Trump candidates, were each booed during their introductions, but afterward, it was mostly Ramaswamy who found himself taking heat.
Moderators finally asked about Trump directly in the debate’s second half, leading to a discussion mostly centered on Jan. 6 and whether Trump deserves a pardon if he’s convicted of a crime.
“The American people deserve to know that the president asked me, in his request, that I reject or return ballots unilaterally, a power that no vice president in American history has ever exercised,” Pence said. “He asked me to put him over the Constitution, and I chose the Constitution, and I always will.”
His refusal ensured that “Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election in 2024,” Pence added.
Pence also drew heavy praise from Christie.
“We have to dispense with a person who said that we need to suspend the Constitution to put forward his political career,” he said. “Mike Pence said no, and he deserves credit for it.”
However, the crowd’s frequent booing of Christie indicates the praise may not benefit Pence.
Scott, DeSantis, and Haley also agreed that Pence did the right thing by certifying the 2020 election.
Ramaswamy pressed Pence on whether he’d pardon Trump if elected, to which Pence noted that Trump hadn’t been convicted of any crimes yet. The debate then moved on to other non-Trump topics.
None of it will make much of a difference, according to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who said in the spin room that the race is functionally over.
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The best Trump zinger didn’t even come from the stage. Speaking outside the arena, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) called Trump a debate night loser and compared the former president’s campaign to one of his state’s most infamous pro sports collapses.
“I think the Trump campaign is making a big mistake by not being here,” Kemp said on the Ruthless podcast. “I feel like they’re in the situation the Falcons were in when it was 28-3.”
