After the debate, nothing changes. Trump still commands GOP presidential race | Opinion

No one could blame you if Wednesday night’s GOP presidential primary debate was the first time you laid eyes on Gov. Doug Burgum.

The billionaire turned chief executive of North Dakota is, according to one recent poll, unknown to 90 percent of voters, but he was one of the eight candidates who battled it out for two hours in Milwaukee.

If you happened to run to the restroom during the event, it’s possible that you missed him entirely; he got less than eight minutes of air time overall.

Air-time is a big deal at these events. How long each candidate gets, whether by skill or obnoxious rule-breaking, to make an impression (sometimes their first) on the audience, is considered an important measure of success. Less is almost never more when it comes to debates.

Landing zingers and either direct or subtle attacks on one’s fellow candidates is another barometer of achievement to many political observers.

In the 48 hours after the debate, the headlines and news programs are dominated by assessments of the showdown; who were the winners and losers?

Who came out swinging and who pulled their punches?

Who had the best lines and whose night was best characterized by their missed opportunities?

Who kept their cool and who lost it?

Those discussions will rage on air and online for days, and they will mostly gloss over the more relevant question: Does any of this really even matter?

Former President Donald Trump still managed to cast his shadow over that stage in Milwaukee.

He’s leading the polls by leaps and bounds, and nothing that happened Wednesday night could reasonably be expected to reverse that course.

To be sure, Trump’s absence from the event was a breath of fresh air.

It provided space and oxygen for candidates such as entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, largely acknowledged as Trump’s stand-in, to play the role of the “political outsider” and wax poetic about his anti-establishment bona fides.

It also provided ample opportunity for Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, to show off his superior debate skills.

Pence, perhaps surprisingly, led the night in terms of speaking time with a whooping 12-and-a-half minutes.

Meanwhile, Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and more recently Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, made her presence known as the only woman on the stage, with sharp criticisms of her opponents and spendy Republicans in Congress.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie authored some of the evening’s most incendiary lines, mostly jabs at Ramaswamy, in his typical fashion.

It was great entertainment, with occasional notes of political brilliance and several rhetorical flops. But still, none of it is likely to matter.

None of these candidates will be able to catch Trump in the polls.

Prior to Wednesday’s debate, Trump was averaging more than 50 percent support in national primary polls.

His various criminal indictments haven’t really changed that in any meaningful way.

His closet rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is still dozens of points behind in every national poll.

A pre-debate focus group by pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson found that only three of the 11 participants had a favorable opinion of DeSantis.

And while DeSantis’ debate performance has generally been rated neither stellar nor abysmal, even a post-debate bump (which he is unlikely to get) would not get him close to catching Trump.

This is just the political reality we live in, however confounding it may be.

Yes, it’s early.

The presidential election is more than 14 months away. Trump is under four active indictments, and President Joe Biden is in questionable health.

Anything could happen.

But unforeseen events aside, the road to the election looks fairly straight and bleak.

We probably won’t hear much more from several of the candidates on Wednesday night’s stage. (Sorry, Govs. Burgum and Asa Hutchison.)

But even for those candidates whose campaigns will stretch into the coming months, the GOP primary debate didn’t matter much, if at all.

And so long as Trump maintains his grip on a key portion of the GOP electorate, the next debates probably won’t matter, either.

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