Republican debate highlights and analysis: Fiery faceoff on Trump, Ukraine and more

Before tonight’s debate kicks off, FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post and Ipsos partnered to ask Republican voters about how they might vote in the upcoming Republican presidential primaries. Specifically, we asked 4,968 likely Republican voters which issues are most important to them when deciding which candidate to vote for in the primaries, using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel.

We offered respondents a list of 16 issues and allowed them to select up to three. Of the topics that we asked about, voters were most concerned about “getting inflation or increasing costs under control” (53 percent of respondents selected this issue), something Republican voters have been concerned about since at least the 2022 midterms, according to a previous FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll. Other issues that were top of mind for voters were “controlling immigration” (36 percent), “someone fighting against liberalism and the woke agenda” (25 percent) and “ability to beat Joe Biden” (25 percent).

If tonight’s debate touches upon those top issues, voters might get some clarity on who they are considering voting for when primary season comes around.

-Analysis by Holly Fuong of FiveThirtyEight

At PolitiFact, this is our fifth presidential cycle. We’ve published more than 23,000 fact-checks since launching in 2007, all using our Truth-O-Meter, which rates claims on a scale from True to Pants on Fire false for the most ridiculous claims.

If PolitiFact is new to you, there are a couple of rules of the road.

First, we don’t fact-check every claim every candidate says. We couldn’t … we’d be dead.

We focus on claims that are particularly interesting, in the news or obviously potentially wrong. Our grading scale tries to measure both the literal truth and how voters might interpret a politicians’ words. So if Pence tonight claims that he and Trump “achieved energy independence” in their first three years in office, it can be more complicated to fact-check than you think.

In Pence’s case, yes, the United States did produce more energy than its citizens consumed during the Trump/Pence White House, but that was built on more than a decade of improvements in shale oil and gas production, as well as renewables. And the U.S. did not produce more gasoline than it consumed (which is maybe what you were thinking about). And if that’s not enough, even though the U.S. didn’t use all the energy it produced, it still imported a substantial amount of energy to serve domestic markets.

So far in this cycle, we’ve published 52 fact-checks of the GOP candidates. Our checks tend to follow the polling of the race. We’ve fact-checked Trump 17 times, DeSantis 14 times, Pence six times, Haley and Tim Scott each five times, and so on. We'll be drawing on those previous fact-checks, as well as the thousands of other claims we've vetted, throughout the night.

-Aaron Sharockman, PolitiFact

I flew to Milwaukee earlier this week to talk to some local voters and learn more about why the GOP decided to have its first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle in the state.

-Analysis by Galen Druke of FiveThirtyEight

DeSantis remains Trump’s closest challenger, but his support has been dropping over the past several months: He currently trails the former president by nearly 40 percentage points in our national polling average.

With that drop have come some shake-ups in the DeSantis campaign. The campaign has laid off around one-third of its 92-person staff, with the latest cuts coming in July, according to ABC News. Changes stretched all the way to the top: DeSantis replaced his campaign manager with his governor’s office chief of staff. On top of that, some of his top donors have voiced concerns, saying they want DeSantis to recruit more major donors and take a more moderate approach on social issues.

All of that has made this debate crucial for DeSantis, both in terms of trying to chip away at Trump’s lead and proving to his supporters that he actually has a shot. He’s recruited a veteran debate coach and is getting advice from a supportive super PAC, according to The New York Times. That advice? Rather than attack the front-runner, DeSantis should “take a sledgehammer” to Ramaswamy who, unlike DeSantis, is rising in the polls. DeSantis won’t just be trying to win the debate tonight: He’s also aiming to push back against the rolling tide of news that hints at a flailing campaign.

-Analysis by Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight