Didn't expect such a pro-robot stance from Christie after he attacked Ramaswamy for sounding like ChatGPT last debate.
-Jacob Rubashkin, 538 contributor

Christie suggested that the government should refrain from regulating AI. Polling shows Republicans agree: when it comes to who should be responsible for providing solutions to AI-related issues, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to turn to companies and brands than to the government. In a July survey from Ipsos, Republicans preferred companies and brands over the government to be most responsible for creating or retaining local jobs by 29 percentage points, ensuring that AI doesn’t discriminate by 8 percentage points and ensuring AI provides accurate results by 14 percentage points. On protecting creators from unfair use of their work and preventing the spread of misinformation by AI, equal numbers of Republicans said that the government and companies should be most responsible.
—Analysis by 538

Christie made an awkward joke about Biden sleeping with teacher’s unions (because he’s married to a teacher), and Pence decided it would be a good idea to remind everyone that he also is sleeping with a teacher (his wife). So, that just happened.
— Analysis by Leah Askarinam of 538

Pence has suggested a federal ban on gender transition-related healthcare for children. In a poll conducted by Marist College for NPR and PBS NewsHour in June, 52 percent of Republicans said only adults who are 18 and older should be able to receive gender transition-related healthcare. Nine percent said adults and children with the consent of their parents should be able to receive such care, and 37 percent said nobody, regardless of age, should be able to receive gender transition-related healthcare.
—Analysis by 538

The second debate stage will look mostly like the first, as seven of the eight candidates who took part in the initial August debate qualified for tonight’s event. And just like the first debate, front-runner Trump has decided to skip the event, despite having the polls and donors to make it. To qualify, the RNC mandated that candidates have at least 3 percent support in two national polls, or at least 3 percent in one nationwide survey and two polls from separate early states, based on polls conducted since Aug. 1 that met the RNC’s criteria for inclusion. Candidates also had to attract at least 50,000 unique contributors, with at least 200 from 20 different states or territories.

The RNC raised the polling and donor standards for the second debate, which slightly winnowed the list of participants. The new rules raised the level of support candidates needed in qualifying polls from 1 percent to 3 percent, and the number of unique donors from 40,000 to 50,000. Six of the seven qualifying candidates had little trouble meeting these polling and donor thresholds. However, although Burgum had enough donors, he struggled to poll well enough nationally to qualify. It took until the Saturday before the debate for him to get the national poll at 3 percent he needed. Meanwhile, former Texas Rep. Will Hurd and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson came up short of qualification, as Hurd lacked sufficient polls and only got to 50,000 donors on Monday, while Hutchinson didn’t have enough qualifying polls or donors.

—Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of 538