Republican debate highlights and analysis: Fiery faceoff on Trump, Ukraine and more
The 2024 hopefuls took the stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, without Trump.
The first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential primary was held in Milwaukee on Wednesday night.
Eight candidates qualified for a spot on the stage: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
Missing from the event was the primary's early front-runner: former President Donald Trump, who declined to participate and instead released a pre-recorded interview with Tucker Carlson.
ABC News and FiveThirtyEight live-blogged every major moment and highlight from the debate, aired on Fox News, with FiveThirtyEight providing analysis and a closer look at the polling and data behind the politicians. PolitiFact made real-time fact checks of key statements.
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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
Where do Americans stand on an abortion ban?
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
According to a July poll from NewsNation, 72 percent of Republican voters believe the criminal justice system isn’t tough enough on crime. That’s compared to 58 percent of voters overall, and just 42 percent of Democrats.
-Analysis by FiveThirtyEight
Pence pressed on rising crime during the pandemic
Pence was pressed on crime in some of the nation's major cities -- with rates that spiked parallel with the COVID-19 pandemic, though they have since dropped in some areas -- and whether the Trump administration's COVID-19 policies were in part to blame.
Pence deflected, saying, "The Democrats have been talking about defunding the police for the last five years. And we ought to be funding law enforcement, particularly in our major cities, at unprecedented levels."
-ABC News' Tal Axelrod
Will anything change following the first primary debate?
I think Geoffrey has this exactly right: It seemed a little like the candidates were playing pretend tonight by ignoring Trump. But they’re in a tough position, politically. Someone needs to go after Trump in order to open up space for another potential nominee, but going after Trump is also extremely unattractive to GOP voters. That combination keeps Trump in a strong position as the front-runner.
At this point, the question isn’t who will be the alternative to Trump, but whether Republicans will produce an alternative nominee to Trump at all. DeSantis needed to prove tonight that he could live up to the initial hype around him, that he was Republicans’ clear alternative to nominating Trump. But there didn’t seem to be a breakout moment for him. A handful of others — like Haley and Pence — had some strong moments, but we’ll have to wait for polling to see whether those actually resonated with voters. Otherwise, it’s more of the same – which is good news for Trump.
-Analysis by Leah Askarinam of FiveThirtyEight