Experts agree: No clear winner from GOP debate

A few memorable moments and sharp quips stood out, but political experts and insiders didn’t see anything at Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate in Simi Valley that helped any candidates establish themselves as rivals to the front-runner, former President Donald Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley both drew some praise for their performances at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. But analysts agreed that none of it was enough to pull away from the pack or put a dent in Trump’s commanding lead in every Republican primary poll.

“Nikki was on the attack, for sure,” said Chris Collier, a Thousand Oaks-based Republican strategist. “I think her and DeSantis performed well, but nothing was so standout that you walked away saying, ‘That was a clear winner.’”

Haco Hoang, the chair of the political science department at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, said the seven candidates in Reagan Library debate are in “a race for distant second,” while Trump and President Joe Biden are already “running a general election campaign” against each other.

Tim Allison, an adjunct professor of political science at CSU Channel Islands, said he thought the only two people who benefited from the debate were Biden and Trump, neither of whom were there.

“That was a stage full of people that were afraid of Donald Trump,” Allison said. “I don’t think the debate changed anything in the minds of Republican voters. … Of the seven people that took that stage, probably only Chris Christie looked like he wanted to be president. The rest were running for some combination of three reasons: get attention, be vice president or run for the job whenever Donald Trump isn’t running, whenever that is.”

Hoang said Haley might be doing well enough in the campaign to be a contender for the vice presidency. But securing a spot as Trump’s running mate will require a difficult balancing act. On Wednesday, Haley didn’t praise Trump, like candidate Vivek Ramaswamy did, and she didn’t directly attack him, like DeSantis and Christie, the former governor of New Jersey.

Aaron Kall, who was at the Reagan Library Wednesday night, wrote the book “Debating the Donald” about the 2016 election cycle debates, which helped push Trump to the presidency. Kall, director of the debate program at the University of Michigan, said the candidates missed an opportunity by not taking harder swings at the front-runner.

“Even though he’s not here, you can still talk about him and get a benefit ... because he can’t defend himself,” Kall said. “Trump is a great counter-puncher.”

John Andersen, chairman of the Ventura County Republican Party, said he thinks Trump should join the debates. He may have a huge lead in the polls without debating his primary opponents, but Andersen said sitting out will hurt him in the general election, when he’ll need to appeal more to voters in the middle.

“When he is not representing himself, he is allowing the press and the other candidates to define him,” Andersen said.

DeSantis did criticize Trump for skipping the first two Republican debates, calling him “missing in action.” Between those comments and his defense of his record in Florida, including an ability to win in traditionally Democratic areas, DeSantis drew praise from some observers.

Tab Berg, a Republican political consultant in Sacramento, said comments like those from DeSantis might bait Trump into joining the debates.

“Conventional wisdom is going to tell him not to do it,” Berg said. “He’s not a conventional candidate.”

Allison, though, said he thought DeSantis’ debate performance was “completely unmemorable,” on a night when he needed a big win. DeSantis is running second behind Trump in most polls. He often trails by 40 or more points, and he has been losing ground in recent weeks.

“I watched DeSantis more than anybody else because I thought this debate was an opportunity for him,” Allison said. “It was probably more important for him than anybody else because of his slide in the polls, and I just don’t think he showed up. It was half an hour into the debate before he said anything.”

Christie was the candidate who took the most direct shots at Trump. But his attempt at a Trump-like derisive nickname — “Donald Duck,” because Trump is ducking the debates — might have had more people laughing at Christie than with him.

“Everyone was talking about ‘Donald Duck,’ and that’s what you want,” Collier said. “Maybe that line wasn’t great, but people are talking about it.”

Collier said the attention is the best Christie could hope for, but it's unlikely to help his campaign. Collier advises candidates for state and local office, and he said he often tells his clients the best outcome in a debate is not to lose ground, “unless there’s something magical that happens.”

“Most of the time, you get up there and you get your points out, make sure your supporters know you did a good job,” Collier said. “It’s more about fundraising and endorsements than anything else.”

The format in Wednesday’s debate, with so many candidates sharing the stage, made it especially hard for anyone to win, he said.

“It’s hard to get that many people to have a real conversation,” Collier said.

He didn’t blame the moderators: Dana Perino of Fox News, Stuart Varney of Fox Business and Ilia Calderón of Univision, But Allison did, along with the candidates. He called the event “the worst debate that I have ever seen,” due to the moderators’ failure to control the conversation and the candidates’ insistence on talking over each other.

“I have seen kindergarten classrooms that were less chaotic than that debate,” Allison said.

The cross-talk made it hard for Sarah Stephan, a CLU student who volunteered for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation at the debate, to evaluate the candidates. Stephan, 20, is a senior political science major, and also attended last month’s GOP debate in Milwaukee.

She said the Milwaukee debate was more informative because the moderators kept things under control and the candidates didn’t talk over each other as much.

Stephan is an independent and said she hasn’t decided whether to vote in the Republican primary or who to vote for if she does. Her job on Wednesday night included working with candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and she said she came away impressed with his ability to connect to younger voters. Ramaswamy is 38 and a newcomer to politics, and has surprised many observers by running near the top of the non-Trump candidates in recent polls.

“It was interesting to see how such a young candidate composes himself among veteran politicians,” Stephan said. “I think that’s refreshing to the American people. … I think he is really showing that a young candidate can go against these veterans and can rattle them to a point.”

Ramaswamy certainly seemed to get under Haley’s skin, and near the end of the debate, she remarked, “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.”

Stephan said it reminded her of the way some veteran politicians reacted to Pete Buttigieg in the 2020 Democratic primaries. Buttigieg was 37 when that campaign began and had never held an office higher than mayor of South Bend, Indiana, but he performed well in debates and is now Biden’s secretary of transportation.

But Stephan said she’d rather the debates in the future focus more on the issues facing the candidates and the country.

Allison said the candidates could use a little more Reaganism in their outlook and delivery, even if Reagan’s policy positions, like amnesty for undocumented immigrants, wouldn’t get them far in today’s Republican Party.

“No matter what you feel about Ronald Reagan, most people saw him as an optimist and a great communicator, and I don’t think anyone on that stage took up that mantle,” he said.

Tom Kisken covers health care and other news for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tom.kisken@vcstar.com or 805-437-0255. Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for The Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Experts agree: No clear winner from GOP debate