Haley spars with Republican rivals at 3rd primary debate as Trump still looms

NBC's Lester Holt posed the first question of the night to DeSantis, asking him why he should be the nominee instead of Trump.

"Now if you look where we are now, it's a lot different than we were in 2016 and Donald Trump's a lot different guy than he was in 2016," the Florida governor said, immediately setting a tone on stage in which the various candidates more bluntly criticized the absent front-runner -- something they had not done throughout much of the early primary campaign.

"He owes it to you to be on this stage and explain why he should get another chance," DeSantis continued. "He should explain why he didn't have Mexico pay for the border wall. He should explain why he racked up so much debt. He should explain why we didn't drain the swamp. He said Republicans were going to get tired of winning. What we saw last night, I'm sick of Republicans losing. In Florida, I showed how it's done."

-ABC News' Alexandra Hutzler

DeSantis just cited his large 2022 victory in Florida as a reason why he’s a stronger candidate than Trump. But I looked into this question a few months ago, and I found that the evidence that DeSantis turned Florida into a red state is pretty thin.

-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538

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. But seriously, we focus on claims that are particularly interesting, or 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 Haley claims that DeSantis is against fracking, it can be more complicated to fact-check than you think. DeSantis, while running for governor in 2018, did promise to ban fracking and prevent oil drilling off Florida's coast.

But DeSantis said that what applies in Florida doesn’t necessarily need to apply everywhere. "And so when we're doing that, that is not saying that I think that should apply to Louisiana or Texas and all that. So, that will continue. And we want them to be able to do it, and we also want them to be able to use hydraulic fracturing," DeSantis has said.

We've fact-checked the candidates on stage in Miami 41 times this year. We’ve fact-checked DeSantis 16 times, Haley and Ramaswamy each eight times, Scott six times and Christie three times.

We'll be drawing on those previous fact-checks, as well as the thousands of other claims we've vetted, throughout the night.

-Analysis by Aaron Sharockman of PolitiFact

The candidates have gathered in Miami for the third debate and DeSantis may hope that his home state's March 19 primary will give him a boost as the GOP nomination race progresses. However, he's got a lot of work to do for that to happen.

DeSantis is in a distant second in national primary polls and also holds that position in surveys of the Iowa caucuses, which will kick things off on Jan. 15. However, even in his home state, DeSantis is badly behind Trump:

In 538's primary average, Trump currently leads DeSantis in the Sunshine State by about 32% -- 53-21%.

Now, Trump's home state is also Florida, with him home at Mar-a-Lago, although he's a longtime New Yorker. And a lot will happen before Florida votes in mid-March. But we saw in 2016 that your home state only matters so much if your campaign isn't doing well. Back then, Trump defeated Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, 46-27% in the Florida primary, which finished Rubio in that race.

-Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of 538