Christie again focused on his record as New Jersey governor when asked about how he'd address shootings and gun violence plaguing the nation.

He accused prosecutors of not arresting violent criminals and said a "President Christie" would appoint attorney general to instruct U.S. attorney to do so.

"We have plenty of room in the federal prisons to lock up these violent criminals and clean up what's going on all across this country and these individuals," Christie said.

During the abortion back-and-forth, Pence claimed that 70 percent of Americans support a 15-week abortion ban. He’s cherry picking the results from one poll.

A 2022 survey from the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll asked respondents, "Do you think your state should allow abortion…?”

Twenty-three percent said up to 15 weeks, 12 percent said up to six weeks and 37 percent said only in cases of rape and incest. That’s 72 percent all together. But answers in surveys vary greatly depending on how the question is asked.

A 2022 Economist/YouGov poll asked specifically about a 15-week ban — 39 percent supported it, 46 percent opposed it. A 2023 PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll asked respondents whether abortion should be allowed up until 24 weeks — 44 percent said yes.

-Aaron Sharockman, PolitiFact

Pence and Ramaswamy trading barbs. Pence opens with America being a faith-filled country without an identity crisis, while Ramaswamy says we're in a dark place and it's not morning in America. It echoed Trump's "American carnage" during his first inaugural address.
-Analysis by Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight

Because there was so much chatter on Pence's support of a 15-week abortion ban, I asked Fivey Fox (aka FiveThirtyEight's Senior Researcher) to pull all the polls we've collected on the subject since September 2021. Over that whole time period Americans were split 44-44 on the issue, but in polls conducted this year they are opposed 51-41.
-Analysis by G Elliott Morris of FiveThirtyEight

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pugnacious Christie repeatedly mixed it up with other candidates tonight. He was critical of Trump, calling the front-runner's behavior "unbecoming" and making him unfit to be president. Christie has a track record of strong debates, having shown in 2016 how he can throw a verbal punch, including his famous takedown of Marco Rubio just ahead of the New Hampshire primary that year. But Christie's criticism of Trump and his high unfavorable ratings among Republicans make his performance unlikely to cause a Christie boomlet in this race.

For Scott, tonight was an opportunity to capitalize on his potential as a candidate who is well-liked by Republicans familiar with him but who is not that well-known. And he largely tried to stay above the fray on most issues, which in theory made sense if he wanted to look like a consensus-style candidate who most Republicans could like. However, that also led to him getting less airtime, as the candidates who engaged each other and freely interrupted were more likely to be on camera. This debate doesn't hurt Scott, but I'm skeptical it helped him much.

-Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of FiveThirtyEight