GOP presidential debate winner? Anyone? Bueller?

This article was first published in the On the Trail 2024 newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox on Tuesday and Friday mornings here.

Good morning and welcome to On the Trail 2024, the Deseret News’ campaign newsletter. I’m Samuel Benson, Deseret’s national political correspondent.

I’m writing from Los Angeles, where I attended the second Republican presidential debate on Wednesday. Whew. More on that in a moment.

But first, the latest from the Deseret News’ 2024 election coverage:

• Candidates spar in a Trump-less Republican debate

• Trump outlines vision of ‘economic nationalism’ in Detroit, while missing debate by Brigham Tomco

• 79% of Iowa Republicans are considering someone besides Trump by Holly Richardson

• Poll: Trump ahead of Biden by 10 points in potential rematch by Gitanjali Poonia

• Gov. Gavin Newsom, Gov. Ron DeSantis agree to debate by Gitanjali Poonia

The Big Idea

GOP presidential debate winner? Anyone? Bueller?  

No one seems to agree about what to make of Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate. Some say it was entertaining. More say it was the worst they’d ever seen. A group of New Hampshire college kids say Nikki Haley won. The Politico cohort thought Tim Scott. A poll of Republican voters said Ron DeSantis. Doug Burgum, in the spin room post-debate, implied it was Doug Burgum.

Amid the cacophony, I think we can agree on a few things. The debate, by most metrics, was bad. The moderators tried to maintain control, but it only lasted so long. The candidates flat-out refused to answer their final question (which, in the candidates’ defense, felt more fitting for “Jeopardy!” than a presidential debate). The most viral moments were not substantive policy discussions, but cringey one-liners (Chris Christie calling the president “Donald Duck” and Mike Pence’s attempt at a risqué joke) or the South Carolinians’ one-on-one shouting match.

If there was a clear winner, there wouldn’t be so much disagreement on who it was.

Case in point: the hottest commodity in the post-debate spin room was not any of the Republican candidates, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who held court for the Biden administration. He commanded a suffocating cluster of reporters for his entire visit, staying longer than any of the Republican presidential candidates, and finding ways to critique just about each of them in unique ways. One camerawoman eventually pulled out a stepstool to get a clear shot of him. Another reporter got hit in the head, twice, by a boom mic, and eventually withdrew from the scrum to prevent a concussion (in her words). Meanwhile, the candidates — Vivek Ramaswamy, Burgum, and surrogates for DeSantis, Scott and Pence — meandered around the room, talking to no more than half a dozen reporters at any given moment.

Related

• Candidates spar in a Trump-less Republican debate

If there was a consensus winner among the candidates, Newsom’s visit would have been viewed as an afterthought. A newsy one, to be sure, but an afterthought nonetheless. Instead, the candidates — each of them gasping for air amid Trump’s suffocating, 40-percentage-point-plus lead in the polls — fought among themselves for two hours, desperately trying to distinguish themselves from the front-runner. But aside from Christie, whose blows on Trump are the central fixture of his campaign, they critiqued the former president no more than necessary — only when it was convenient to chide him for not attending the debate, or when discussions of federal spending called for acknowledgement of the Trump administration’s failure on that end.

The candidates seemed content with this. “Look, (Scott) has said that Donald Trump should come debate,” Matt Gorman, Scott’s senior communications adviser, said in the spin room after the debate. “Whoever’s on the stage, whoever’s not on the stage, it’s an opportunity we’re not going to pass up.”

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, took a victory lap. Trump spent the evening in Detroit, speaking to striking auto workers, and sent Kari Lake — the former Arizona gubernatorial candidate — as his surrogate. After his last debate no-show, Trump dipped slightly in the polls, then quickly resurged to higher levels than before; his team expects much of the same this go-around.

“I applaud President Trump for being a true leader and standing with the folks in Michigan, a critical state, while the D-list debate team fought onstage and really embarrassed themselves,” Lake told me.

And what of Ronald Reagan? While candidates sparred at the Reagan Library, a stone toss from his resting place, the late president was barely mentioned, aside from a handful of references to “a time for choosing” or “a city on a hill.”

“Ronald Reagan would be ashamed by what we saw tonight,” Newsom, the latest in the line of Reagan’s California successors, said.

Maybe it was an easy jab for a Democrat to make. Maybe he had a point. When asked about the on-stage feud over aid to Ukraine, Burgum — who’s been a staunch advocate for defending Ukraine from Russia (and Taiwan from China) — echoed Newsom: “I think Ronald Reagan would’ve been deeply concerned about some of the comments made tonight.”

Poll pulse

A new survey from Pew Research Center shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans want to see major changes to U.S. elections.

By about 2 to 1, Americans want a popular vote, not the Electoral College, to determine who is president. 65% of Americans favor scrapping the Electoral College for a popular vote; 33% support keeping the current system.

There is a big partisan divide: 82% of Democrats want a popular vote, compared to 47% of Republicans. But that figure has nearly doubled since 2016, when only 27% of Republicans favored a popular vote.

Ad of the week

At Wednesday’s Republican debate, Univision’s Ilia Calderon — one of the moderators — welcomed viewers in Spanish. Meanwhile, Democrats are trying to attract the Hispanic vote, too, releasing their third Spanish-language TV ad in three months.

“Republicans say they support us, but we know they work for the rich and powerful,” the ad says. “Joe Biden is different. He fights for us.”

Weekend reads

• In case you missed it, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley is retiring, and in response, Trump accused him of treason and called for his execution. (Second-page news.) This thought-provoking profile on Milley left me thinking about the U.S.’ continued strength abroad — and whether our biggest threats are at home. “The Patriot: How General Mark Milley protected the Constitution from Donald Trump” (Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic)

• During Wednesday’s debate, Ramaswamy was pressed on his proposal to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. Scott offered a soft rebuke, noting the constitutional amendment in question was written in response to slavery, not illegal immigration. Fiona Harrigan (a former Utahn!) breaks down the argument here. “Vivek Ramaswamy Proposes a (Probably) Illegal Plan To End Birthright Citizenship” (Reason)

• An interesting take on the Senate dress code debate (after Mitt Romney passed a resolution to reinstate it), written by Twitter’s foremost menswear expert. (Not an oxymoron.) His argument is fresh: “The reason the Senate should maintain the dress code is precisely because clothing is not all that important — next to debates over who gets welfare and who goes to war, fashion is simply not a serious concern.” “John Fetterman Should Wear a Suit — And Republicans Should Put a Sock in It” (Derek Guy, Politico)

• Lastly, it’s one of my favorite weekends of the year — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ General Conference. More on how to watch, listen or stream here.

Anything you’d like to see from our campaign coverage? Drop me a line: onthetrail@deseretnews.com.

See you on the trail.

Editor’s Note: The Deseret News is committed to covering issues of substance in the 2024 presidential race from its unique perspective and editorial values. Our team of political reporters will bring you in-depth coverage of the most relevant news and information to help you make an informed decision. Find our complete coverage of the election here.