Abortion hasn't just been a losing issue at the ballot for Republicans: Since the Dobbs decision, more Americans are supporting more liberal views on abortion than they have in decades. More Americans want abortion to be legal in most cases, and more Americans are suspicious of restrictions. The share of Americans who want abortion to be legal in the first trimester is 60 percent, according to Gallup.
-Analysis by Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight

Haley was the first participant to name Trump during the debate, referring to the amount that was added to the nation's debt under the former president, who also oversaw the sweeping response to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic and a major tax cut.

-ABC News’ Abby Cruz

Since Roe vs. Wade was overturned, a number of Republican-led states have passed laws that prohibit abortion after 6 weeks of pregnancy or when a fetal heartbeat can be detected (though many of these laws have been blocked in court). According to June polling from Harris Poll for the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies, Republicans favor similar laws in their states by a margin of 30 percentage points (65 percent support and 35 percent oppose).
-Analysis by FiveThirtyEight

DeSantis brushed off concerns that his signing a six-week abortion ban in Florida will hurt him on the national stage.

"I would say we sold the biggest election landslide victory in the history of the Republican party and the state of Florida in 2022," DeSantis countered. "That's what I did. We can win."

DeSantis argued "we're better than what the Democrats are selling" but ultimately demurred on whether he'd support a six-week ban at the national level.

"I will stand on the side of life," he responded.

Tonight I’m on Pence and Hutchinson duty. Neither candidate appears to have a great shot at winning the primary — the former vice president is at 4 percent in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average while the former Arkansas governor hasn’t even garnered 1 percent — but Pence at least has a decent chance of making a debate-night splash. Given the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Pence has the strongest claim to the anti-Trump “lane” of the primary. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some real fireworks between him and the GOP candidates who have been quick to jump to Trump’s defense after the bad news he has been hit with over the past year. For his part, Hutchinson will have to pull off a masterclass in persuasion and performance to gain substantial ground. In our poll with Ipsos and The Washington Post, only 6 percent of Republicans said they were even considering voting for him, much less were intending to do so. In a more fluid primary, he’d maybe have a shot at doing something about that. But with Trump as the default and other candidates leading the various anti-Trump lanes, those are really tough numbers to come back from.

–Analysis from G. Elliott Morris_