The moderators finally turn to discussing Trump, who has skipped the debate for a (pre-recorded!) interview with Tucker Carlson. It's clearly intentional that they waited this long — Trump is ahead by 37 points in our national polling average, so he's an obvious elephant (not) in the room. In some ways the entire debate is moot because of that lead. Remember that these candidates are running for second and third place right now, not first.

-Analysis by G Elliott Morris of FiveThirtyEight

Burgum has mentioned his small-town roots a few times during the debate, most recently to hold up small towns as an example of how to beat back rising crime. A lot of what distinguishes Burgum from the field -- his success as tech CEO, his more pragmatic politics, his low-key demeanor -- don't necessarily play well in today's Republican Party, but small-town politics is usually a winner. Just look at the success of Jason Aldean's "Try That In a Small Town" among conservatives earlier this month.
-Analysis by Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections

A group of more than 100 anti-Republican protestors temporarily took to the street outside Fiserv Forum after the debate began.

The group was advocating on behalf of several causes championed by the left, carrying signs advocating for abortion rights, transgender rights, immigrant rights and Black Lives Matter, among other causes.

Some of the signs were more explicitly political in nature, directly targeting GOP candidates.

One protestor carried a sign reading “Down with DeSantis.”

The group cheered, whistled and chanted as they advanced down the street.

“Get up, get down, Milwaukee is a union town,” was one chant that could be heard.

The protestors were accompanied by legal observers.

The group walked down an open street and at one point briefly blocked traffic. The protestors were otherwise peaceful and dissipated soon after they began.

-ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and Olivia Osteen

The candidates came to the debate prepared with answers about abortion – carefully considering their wording, and, in a stark departure from the first half hour, actually answering the moderators’ question on the issue.

One thing the candidates didn’t want to talk about? Climate change. The moderators asked the candidates to raise their hand if they believed human behavior was driving climate change — but that didn’t happen. Instead, DeSantis said he wanted to debate rather than answer a question like “school children.” Ramaswamy chimed in to say “the climate change agenda is a hoax,” drawing boos from the crowd, though it wasn’t clear what exactly they were booing. Christie jumped in to say that Ramaswamy sounded like both ChatGPT and Obama. Haley decided that this was the moment to quote Margaret Thatcher — “if you want something done ask a woman” — though she did answer that climate change was real, putting the onus on China. And Scott used the moment to chide the rest of the field for being “childish.”

— Analysis by Leah Askarinam of FiveThirtyEight

In anticipation of tonight’s debate, we partnered with Ipsos and The Washington Post to ask likely Republican primary voters what they think about tonight’s debate participants and the candidate field in general.

The 4,968 likely Republican primary voters we polled using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel expect Ramaswamy’s performance to be best among the eight expected debate participants. According to a five-point scale that we calculated using respondents’ answers (with 1 being “terrible” and 5 being “excellent”), likely voters expected Ramaswamy to perform “very good” (3.59 out of 5). They thought DeSantis would perform second-best (3.51 out of 5) and Scott third (3.43 out of 5).

When it comes to whom respondents think they’ll place their votes for in the primaries, 65 percent are considering Trump and 52 percent are considering DeSantis. About 1 in 4 likely Republican primary voters are considering voting for Pence, Scott and Haley. The remaining six candidates we asked about fell below 25 percent.

We’ll be watching to see how the candidates fare tonight, and if debate watchers’ opinions on whom they’re considering voting for will change after tonight’s performances.

-Analysis by Holly Fuong of FiveThirtyEight