Republican candidates for president — minus the front-runner — jostled for position in the first debate of the 2024 Presidential cycle for two hours on Wednesday night in Milwaukee.
The debate’s location in Milwaukee symbolized Wisconsin’s importance to the electoral college and the candidates made their case to lead the party in a debate that was thin on policy but full of name-calling and interruptions. It was, after all, a primary debate.
Here are five takeaways from Wednesday’s debate:
Republicans fractured over abortion
Abortion, an issue long championed by social conservatives and an energizer for swaths of Republican foot soldiers, seems on the edge of driving a stake through the party. With Roe v. Wade overturned, the candidates have been forced to pivot away from platitudes about “appointing conservative justices” and towards concrete policy.
What resulted was arguably the most tense, most substantive clash of the night. Asa Hutchinson and Mike Pence played the evangelical card and came out forcefully for a 15-week federal ban on abortion. But the largest applause was saved for North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who pulled a pocket Constitution from his suit and declared his opposition to federal action on the issue, citing the 10th Amendment.
The snapshot illustrates how 12 months in a post-Roe world have upended American politics.
Since the Dobbs decision, voters have defeated every anti-abortion ballot measure — not just in swing states, but deep red Kansas, Kentucky and Montana.
The Biden campaign has telegraphed their intention to make abortion a central component to re-election. And if voters remain as opposed to the pro-life position as they were in 2022, the GOP will be in trouble.
DeSantis plays disappearing governor
Ron DeSantis looked far from the frontrunner despite being the leading candidate on the stage.
During extended portions of the debate, DeSantis seemed almost invisible — a man who did not want the ball.
It is unlikely this performance will wash the “stiff” and “awkward” image he’s cultivated among the minds of some voters. Unlike Pence and Ramaswamy, DeSantis never jumped into the debate unless called upon and his strongest points were often ignored by his opponents.
DeSantis consistently polled above every Republican not named Trump. But there seemed to be no one on the stage who sincerely feared him.
Republican former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said at a Young America’s Foundation rally before the debate that it “was not enough to have a good performance.”
“You have to have a breakthrough performance,” Walker said.
DeSantis did not break out.
“He looked like a wallflower up there,” Donald Trump, Jr., former President Trump’s eldest son, said in the post-debate spin room. He announced DeSantis as the clear loser of the debate.
This is not surprising, as the Trump campaign rarely misses an opportunity to punch down on the Florida governor. But his analysis lines up with much of the pre-debate buzz.
DeSantis needed to use the two hours to prove he was the only candidate who could defeat Trump and Biden. But he largely receded into the shadows in a performance that will make his already skeptical donors more uncertain.
Ramaswamy: ChatGPT or Trump 2.0?
Most of the pack instead piled on the other center stage candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, who seemed to bait his way into every topic Wednesday night with policy positions catered to the most extreme of online conservatives.
Ramaswamy seemed overmatched in foreign policy discussions with former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on his position to cut funding for Ukraine. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also attacked him for his opening remarks, where he ripped off Barack Obama’s famous line from the 2004 Democratic National Convention that he was a “skinny kid with a strange last name.”
“I’ve already had enough of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here,” the former Christie declared in a jab at Ramaswamy.
Yet, in most flash surveys, primary voters crowned him the victor, despite instant polling showing his numbers among women and independents crashing after his full-throated defense of Trump and declaration that climate change is a “hoax.”
How Ramaswamy ultimately performs will be the biggest litmus test of the primary season and the best window into the post-Trump Republican Party.
Trump Jr. heaped praise on the 38-year-old neophyte as the winner of the debate. His positions on Ukraine and gutting the Department of Education may be too extreme for some voters in a general election, but they are right at home with a Republican base that has jolted right in the past half-decade.
If Ramaswamy can leapfrog DeSantis and finish second in the primary, it will show just how much the party’s base has abandoned Fox News conservatism and solidify the GOP as the party of Trump for the foreseeable future.
Wisconsin overlooked despite tipping point status
Wisconsin is arguably the most important political state today. In 2016 and 2020, it was the tipping point — the state that delivered the 270th electoral vote to the eventual winner. It will likely play the same role next November, and the vote difference could be but a sliver of Camp Randall’s capacity.
Republicans so far have made the state a priority on the 2024 campaign trail. Walker acknowledged the attention Wednesday while he spoke about the importance of “exposure” and how the decision to host the first Republican debate and next August’s Republican National Convention could tip the state red.
Yet for all the focus on the Badger State, there was nothing outside of several mentions of the Milwaukee Bucks on the broadcast that could have indicated where the debate was being held.
Agriculture and manufacturing, the two biggest issues in Wisconsin and many Midwestern battleground states, received no airtime.
Both Biden and Trump in the past two elections have largely been successful by honing protectionist measures on trade and making American manufacturing the centerpiece of their economic policies. Candidates will surely have to answer those questions once voting season comes around, and it was surprising the moderators let them off the hook Wednesday.
Does any of this matter?
Catching up with former Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, a Tim Scott surrogate, in the spin room, he suggested the more these eight candidates took the stage apart from Donald Trump, the more they would gain on the front runner.
I’m skeptical. Trump entered the debate lapping the field, calling it his “V.P. sweepstakes”, and managed to skip Milwaukee without so much as a blemish to his image in the eyes of conservatives.
He drew fire from those expected to fire on him — low-polling former Govs. Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, and both men were repeatedly booed throughout the debate.
Not once was Trump challenged on not showing up. Republicans set up applause lines based on “finishing the wall” and other administration priorities. Most candidates on stage said they would support the former president even if he was running his comeback bid from prison.
It seems this worked exactly how Trump wanted it to. He lowered the other candidates to the proverbial kiddie table and avoided any costly body-blows.
Graham Brown is a former opinions editor for The Daily Cardinal.
