A smaller group of candidates. Higher stakes. More confrontations. Flashes of anger. The utterance of the word “scum” in a nationally televised session. Even two Canadian issues. The third Republican presidential debate was held roughly a year before the 2024 general election – and marked a new stage in the struggle for the GOP nomination.
The candidates were asked a string of questions – but it was a series of other questions that the debate answered. Here are some of them:
How was this debate different from other debates?
It came a day after Republican candidates and interests were defeated in state elections. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy said the Republicans “have become a party of losers,” adding, “We got trounced last night.”
The debate involved repeated criticism of antisemitism on American university campuses and elsewhere – strong statements from a party that has not captured more than 35 per cent of the Jewish vote in 35 years and is seeking to improve that performance at a time when the left wing of the Democratic Party is leaving many Jews disoriented and discouraged.
This session thrust two Canadian issues into the presidential debate for the first time. It began when Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said he would revoke the ban on the Keystone XL Pipeline that President Joe Biden imposed on his first day in the White House. Later, Mr. Ramaswamy criticized the flow of deadly fentanyl across the Canadian border.
The session also stamped the presence of TikTok in the United States as a potent election issue – during the very session in which several TikTok television advertisements appeared. Former governor Chris Christie of New Jersey said the Chinese-based social-media powerhouse was “poisoning American minds,” setting up one of the most explosive exchanges of the year: When Mr. Ramaswamy remarked that former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s daughter was on TikTok (“Take care of your family first”), she shot back, “Leave my daughter out of your voice,” then muttered, in a stage whisper, “You’re just scum.”
And the debate provided a forum for Republicans to soften the image of the party. For years, former Democratic representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts taunted Republicans by saying they believed life “begins with conception and ends at birth.” Both Mr. Scott and Mr. Christie took the “pro-life” label and said Republicans should apply the term to the poor and the striving who need assistance to thrive in the contemporary United States.
What role did Donald Trump play in his absence?
He was there from the start. In his opening remarks, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida channelled the rhetoric of Mr. Trump. Though he possesses two Ivy League degrees – one more than Mr. Trump – he spoke twice of “the elites.” He said the Mexican border “lets drugs and even terrorists” enter the country, a favourite Trump sally. He aped a Trump remark by saying he would build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. And he vowed, “I will fight for you,” another Trump riposte. If you read the transcript of the remarks rather than watching the debate on television or online, you almost certainly would have thought it was the 45th president speaking.
Mr. Trump, a political pugilist, was himself the target of punches Wednesday night. Mr. DeSantis said of the Republican front-runner, “He owes it to you to be on this stage.” Ms. Haley said Mr. Trump “used to be right on Ukraine” and “put us $8-trillion in debt.” Others charged that as president he promised more than he delivered.
Did Mr. DeSantis get a lift from the high-profile endorsement he received this week?
Two days after he was endorsed by Governor Kim Reynolds in Iowa, site of the first contest of the 2024 political season, he showed renewed confidence and mastery. Speaking before a friendly home-state audience, he continually spoke of having “acted swiftly and decisively” on, among other issues, education and supporting Israeli hostages after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. But from time to time he seemed overprepared, once spewing forth a hail of memorized alliterations that could not have been spontaneous. That may not have helped his efforts to seem more human and less programmed.
Did Ms. Haley continue her upward trajectory?
The best indication of her ascension: Mr. Ramaswamy, earlier an upward-bound candidate, repeatedly assailed Ms. Haley, at one point calling her “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels,” a zinging characterization that itself was a measure of how much the Republican Party has changed since Mr. Cheney – a former chief of staff to a Republican president (Gerald R. Ford), a member of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill and a two-term vice-president to another Republican president (George W. Bush) – was GOP royalty. For the second time, Ms. Haley took a more moderate position on abortion than her rivals, part of her effort to portray her candidacy as a conciliatory alternative in a country where abortion is a divisive issue.
How prominent in the debate was the war in the Middle East?
In a debate that was co-sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition, the candidates sounded themes as hardline as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That was another break with the former president, with Mr. DeSantis saying he would advise Mr. Netanyahu to “finish the job once and for all,” Ms. Haley saying much the same thing (“Finish them”), and Mr. Ramaswamy, as always, seeking to go not only further but furthest: “Smoke those terrorists.”
Did the Republicans put on a united face in a debate roughly a year before the general election?
Yes – in their opposition to, and criticism of, Mr. Biden. Yes – in their determination to make the unease felt by American voters a Republican strength.
But no in many specifics, especially on funding for Ukraine, an issue that is also dividing Republicans on Capitol Hill. Mr. Ramaswamy derided what he called the “Ukraine hawks” and argued that Ukraine “is not a paragon of democracy” – a remark that prompted Ms. Haley, a former American ambassador to the United Nations, to shoot back, “[Russian President] Putin and [Chinese President] Xi Jinping are salivating at the thought that someone like that would become president.” Mr. Christie said support of Ukraine was “the price we pay for being the leaders of the free world.”
The field is smaller, the differences are bigger – and the time is growing shorter. The Iowa caucuses will be held Monday, Jan. 15.
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