Born in 1985 and only 38, Ramaswamy may be the only candidate on stage who was too young to remember the Cold War. The USSR dissolved when he was 6.
-Analysis by Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight

The debate over Ukraine is a window into the intraparty battle between its previously more dominant neoconservative wing that lost credibility during and after the George W. Bush years and the comparably isolationist wing that's gained ground with Trump's time in office. Ramaswamy, as an avatar for the New Right, specifically name-checked the Iraq War, saying the Ukraine conflict could lead to American intervention. By comparison, Pence and Haley, more traditional conservatives who have foreign policy experience from their time as vice president and U.N. ambassador, respectively, were especially vocal in defending U.S. support for Ukraine.-Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of FiveThirtyEight

Scott, DeSantis, Christie, Haley and Burgum (plus, of course, Pence) all said tonight that Pence did the right thing on Jan. 6 by refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 election (which he didn’t have the legal ability to do anyway). That’s a notable break from one of the highest-profile tenets of Trumpism — that he was the rightful winner in 2020. In fact, in 2022, we found that only 31 percent of Republican candidates for Senate, House, governor, attorney general and secretary of state had accepted the legitimacy of Biden’s election. Tonight, a majority of the GOP presidential candidates have done so.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of FiveThirtyEight

Bret Baier just asked about increasing funding to Ukraine. According to a July poll by SSRS/CNN, 71 percent of Republicans say that the U.S. Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine, while 28 percent say that it should. However, there is more support among Republicans for some other U.S. actions in Ukraine, such as 56 percent who support assisting Ukraine in intelligence gathering, 48 percent who support military training for Ukranians, and 30 percent who support supplying the Ukrainian military with weapons.
-Analysis by FiveThirtyEight

Money isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of political campaigns — but it sure helps, especially during the early phases of a primary. And in the 2024 pocketbook primary, the leaders so far are Trump (who raised $17.7 million in April, May and June) and DeSantis (who raised $20.1 million). These figures are striking, but you also have to account for how much time each candidate has been in the race. For instance, DeSantis jumped in in late May, so he had much less time in which to raise that money than Trump. Here’s a chart of who raised the most in the second quarter on a prorated basis.

But there’s also important context that those topline fundraising numbers don’t tell you. For instance, Burgum’s and Ramaswamy’s totals aren’t as impressive as they look — most of their fundraising came from their own wallets rather than from grassroots donors. Burgum self-funded $10.1 million of his $11.8 million haul, and Ramaswamy self-funded $5.0 million of his $7.7 million total.

On the other end of the spectrum, Scott is in better financial shape than his $5.9 million raised would suggest. That’s because he has more than $21 million cash on hand, thanks to money he carried over from his high-rolling Senate campaigns.

-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of FiveThirtyEight