Republican debate highlights and analysis: Candidates squabble in Simi Valley
2024 hopefuls argued over education, spending and border security.
The second Republican debate of the 2024 presidential primary, taking place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, has just come to an end.
The affair was more raucous than the first debate, which took place over a month ago. Candidates interrupted one another much more regularly and several — most notably former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — have directly criticized front-runner Donald Trump, who elected not to show up tonight. The two candidates from South Carolina, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, went after one another for their records on spending, and seemingly everyone who had the chance to take a shot at entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy did so.
Read below for highlights, excerpts and key moments.
Latest headlines:
- South Carolina on South Carolina: Nikki Haley and Tim Scott spar several times on stage
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- Survivor, GOP primary edition?
- Pence seems to be playing out the string
- Ramaswamy and Scott's debate over birthright citizenship devolves into chaotic exchange
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
How things are going
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
Where are the candidates campaigning?
We at 538 have been tracking how many days each candidate has spent campaigning in each state. And some interesting patterns have emerged:
Some candidates — like Ramaswamy and Haley — have really focused on retail politics, while others — like Trump and Scott — have held relatively few campaign events. (Perhaps their strategy is more reliant on TV ads.)>
Hutchinson, DeSantis and Pence have focused their campaigning on Iowa, whose culturally conservative and religious GOP electorate may be a good fit for their politics. By contrast, Christie and Hurd have focused their efforts on New Hampshire, whose large population of independent voters may be more receptive to their anti-Trump message.
The candidates are largely ignoring Nevada, even though it’s the third state on the primary calendar. Through Tuesday, the 10 major candidates have spent a total of 162 campaign days in Iowa and 124 in New Hampshire, but only four in Nevada!
—Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538