Haley draws fire in 4th Republican debate as Christie warns absent Trump is still biggest issue
The Iowa caucuses are weeks away; the former president remains the favorite.
With voting set to start in the 2024 Republican primary in less than six weeks, four of the top candidates again took the stage for a debate -- this time on Wednesday night in Tuscaloosa, Alabama -- and the event proved to be fiery.
Hosted by NewsNation and moderated by Elizabeth Vargas, Megyn Kelly and Eliana Johnson, the debate featured Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. The primary's front-runner, former President Donald Trump, continued to skip the event despite criticism from his rivals. He was fundraising in Florida.
ABC News and the analysts at 538 live-blogged every major moment and highlight from the debate. PolitiFact made real-time fact checks.
Key moments:
Biden campaign wants answers on Trump's dictator comment
In a bit of counterprogramming, President Joe Biden's campaign has released a set of questions it suggests the moderators ask of his potential opponents on Wednesday. The first: “Do you support Donald Trump’s plans to be a dictator on day 1?"
The campaign’s press release is a response to former President Trump’s comment on Tuesday that, “except for Day One,” he wouldn’t be a “dictator” if he returned to the presidency. “No, no, no. Other than day one. We’re closing the border, and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator,” the Republican front-runner told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
The campaign, seeking to make democracy a central issue in next year's race, also suggested DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy and Christie speak to another democratic norm: “Will you accept the results of the 2024 election unequivocally?"
-ABC News' Chris Boccia
5 things to watch for
Will a smaller stage make a difference? What will the big policy topics be? Do DeSantis and Haley target Trump ... or each other?
Those are three of five notable things to watch in the fourth debate, on Wednesday night.
Read more about them here.
-ABC News' Tal Axelrod
The big headlines since the last debate
It's been four weeks since Republican primary contenders last met on stage. A lot has happened between then and now.
Two candidates dropped out of the race: South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Their exits whittled down the field down to five major candidates, though Trump remains the front-runner with two candidates now vying for second place in the polls: DeSantis and Haley. All three recently received notable endorsements with voting just weeks away. The Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity Action threw its support behind Haley over Trump while DeSantis has earned key endorsements in Iowa, including from Gov. Kim Reynolds and Trump, despite his absence, just got the backing of Alabama Sen. Katie Britt.
This is the last chance for candidates to get a boost on the national stage before next month's Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
-ABC News' Alexandra Hutzler
How to watch
The debate, being held at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, will air on cable news network NewsNation at 8 p.m. EST.
It will also be broadcast in the Eastern and Central time zones on the company's broadcast television network, The CW.
The faceoff will be livestreamed on NewsNation's website and on Rumble as well.
The moderators will be Elizabeth Vargas, the anchor of NewsNation's "Elizabeth Vargas Reports"; Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News and NBC News anchor who now hosts "The Megyn Kelly Show" on Sirius XM; and Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of The Washington Free Beacon.
-ABC News' Sarah Beth Hensley
4 questions 538 has during the debate
Can anyone take down Haley? According to 538’s polling with The Washington Post and Ipsos, Republican primary voters have responded favorably to each of Haley’s first three debate performances, and it’s probably not a coincidence that she’s been rising in the polls at the same time. But that could put a target on her back on Wednesday -- and it’s possible that her momentum will stall if she’s perceived to have a bad performance.
Will anyone go after Trump? So far, the debates have mostly consisted of the candidates on stage attacking each other. But that’s an odd strategy considering that their biggest obstacle to the nomination is Trump. In fact, he’s above 50% in 538’s national polling average -- meaning that even if another candidate consolidates all of the non-Trump vote, Trump would still be ahead. That means that someone is going to have to peel support away from Trump in order to win the nomination -- and one way to do that is to attack him in the debates.
Who will perform best on the economy and immigration? According to the latest 538/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 52% of likely Republican voters said getting inflation or costs under control was one of the top three issues in determining their primary vote; 41% said controlling immigration was one of their top three issues. These will probably be the most important segments to watch at the debate then: If a candidate really aces a question on inflation or immigration, that could go a long way.
Will anyone watch? The ratings have been falling with every debate: While the August faceoff garnered 12.8 million viewers, the September one got 9.5 million and the November one got only 7.5 million. And only 26% of the respondents to our 538/Washington Post/Ipsos poll said they were very likely or absolutely certain to watch the fourth debate. Obviously, the fewer people who watch the debate, the less anything that happens on stage will matter.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538