It's not too surprising to me that Trump didn't come up much tonight except when explicitly pushed by the moderators. A lot of Republicans -- certainly GOP officeholders -- really don't like talking about Trump and never have. Tonight they were given the opportunity to pretend like Trump isn't in the race or the defining story of the election, and of course they took advantage of it. I bet it felt like a relief, even if it wasn't really moored in reality.
-Analysis by Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections

For the less-known candidates, debates are a crucial task to introduce themselves (in a positive light!) to the American people. The Google results posted here indicate that Ramaswamy made a big splash today (though I'm not sure how positive the reception will be). He and Scott currently have the strongest net favorable numbers among the GOP candidates. I don't think we heard enough from the latter candidate for his numbers to meaningfully change.

-Analysis by G Elliott Morris of FiveThirtyEight

Outside of the segment on Trump's indictments and his behavior on Jan. 6, it's been a bit surprising that there's been little discussion of him otherwise. There've been a few references to actions taken prior to Biden taking office, indirectly involving Trump, but not much specifically about him. That has turned this debate into something of an alternative universe where these are the main eight candidates, not the eight who are badly trailing the main guy not in the room.
-Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of FiveThirtyEight

Yeah, Maya, I am surprised Trump didn’t come up more. With him not on stage, I actually thought it would be easier for the candidates to swipe at him, since there was no risk of him punching directly back. But with some notable exceptions, like Christie and Hutchinson (and even then, only on a couple occasions), the candidates showed little interest in hammering away at the primary front-runner. I think that’s a questionable strategy since none of these candidates will be able to earn majority support in the primary without stealing some of it from Trump.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of FiveThirtyEight

Before tonight’s debate kicks off, FiveThirtyEight, The Washington Post and Ipsos partnered to ask Republican voters about how they might vote in the upcoming Republican presidential primaries. Specifically, we asked 4,968 likely Republican voters which issues are most important to them when deciding which candidate to vote for in the primaries, using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel.

We offered respondents a list of 16 issues and allowed them to select up to three. Of the topics that we asked about, voters were most concerned about “getting inflation or increasing costs under control” (53 percent of respondents selected this issue), something Republican voters have been concerned about since at least the 2022 midterms, according to a previous FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll. Other issues that were top of mind for voters were “controlling immigration” (36 percent), “someone fighting against liberalism and the woke agenda” (25 percent) and “ability to beat Joe Biden” (25 percent).

If tonight’s debate touches upon those top issues, voters might get some clarity on who they are considering voting for when primary season comes around.

-Analysis by Holly Fuong of FiveThirtyEight