The Real Republican Debate Winner Was Clear, in One Sense

Unless you’re from North Dakota, here’s how you probably reacted when the camera first landed on Gov. Doug Burgum’s face during Wednesday evening’s Republican presidential debate: First, you turned to the person next to you and said out loud, “I’ve never seen that man before in my life.” Then you likely studied his face for a moment before making some variation of the following observation: “Wow, that guy has some eyebrows.”

Burgum is the two-term governor of North Dakota, and if you want to learn about him, you should read my colleague Jim Newell’s introduction—he is a former chimney sweep and current gazillionaire who cares about energy and the economy and recently signed one of the country’s strictest abortion laws. Prior to the debate, his name recognition was so low among voters that he offered $20 gift cards to anyone who donated a dollar to his campaign in order to meet the threshold of 40,000 individual donors needed to earn him a spot in the debate.

I fear that all that effort to get onto the debate stage was in vain. Because while Burgum certainly made an impression on the country, the entirety of that impression was: eyebrows. I doubt a significant portion of the viewership, after watching, can tell you anything else about him besides eyebrows. In the same way that in the Barbie movie, Ken’s job is beach, no one would bat an eye if you told them that Burgum’s job is eyebrows. His political positions? Also eyebrows. And his record? You guessed it: eyebrows.

You might interpret this as a kind of win: Burgum’s brows were a hot topic on social media, with some people declaring that they gave the strongest performance of the night. But is that a good thing? This was Burgum’s chance to make a first impression on Republican voters, but is he any better off now than he was before the debate? Is it better to be known as “guy with the eyebrows” than not known at all? Ideally, wouldn’t people be talking about what he said—I think there was something about China, and I recall thinking he seemed nervous—and not the hairy specimens on his forehead? Or maybe he can leverage the eyebrows to make inroads with voters. I wonder if there’s any polling data on this.

In any case, Burgum’s brows made such a strong showing that it was hard not to take note of the other candidates’. Nikki Haley’s are solid, Ron DeSantis’, a little sparse. Did former Vice President Mike Pence always have such barely-there brows? And this new kid, Vivek Ramaswamy, does he thread his? It sure looked liked it! Because they were looking very neat. They may have no bearing on the actual election, but the 2024 eyebrow primaries have now commenced.

Read all of Slate’s coverage of the first 2024 Republican presidential debate.