Winners and Losers From the Third Republican Debate

Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for the third Republican presidential debate, held in Miami on Wednesday night. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers and contributors rate the candidates on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 means the candidate probably didn’t belong on the stage and should have dropped out before the debate even started; 10 means the candidate can head to Iowa and New Hampshire with the wind at his or her back. Here’s what our columnists and contributors thought about the debate.

Jamelle Bouie On abortion, at least, Nikki Haley knows how to sound like a moderate. And if this were an actually competitive presidential nomination process, you’d be hard-pressed not to see Haley as far and away the most viable candidate for the general election.

Gail Collins Well, she certainly beat all the boys. Such as they were.

Michelle Cottle Very strong showing. The heavy foreign policy focus played to her strengths. Whether talking Ukraine, Iran, Israel or China, she was crisp and confident. She refused to let her opponents’ attacks go unanswered. She landed solid punches on DeSantis. And it was a delight to watch her smack back at Ramaswamy’s yapping.

Ross Douthat I’m not sure she won all her arguments with Ramaswamy, but the stylistic contrast between them has been a boon for her. Likewise, her abortion answer was fundamentally evasive but rhetorically more effective, with its show of nuance, than most of the answers from her rivals. The debate didn’t answer the question of whether she can really cut into DeSantis’s more conservative bloc of support. But her consolidation of voters seeking pre-Trump Republican normalcy and smiling electability should continue.

David French Neoconservatism made its comeback tonight, and Nikki Haley led the charge. She was hawkish on Iran, steadfast in supporting Israel, steadfast in supporting Ukraine and hawkish on China. Her message was clear: American weakness anywhere will be exploited by American enemies everywhere. She was also sensible and realistic on abortion. When the pro-life position is in electoral retreat, now is the wrong time to talk about national bans.

Sarah Isgur Expectations were high for Haley to keep moving toward a No. 2 position, and she met them, but not by much. Once again, she handled Ramaswamy easily. She also substantively had such strong answers that she looked like someone who could actually do the job of president. But nothing about her debate performance seems it would or could change the fact that she’s still lagging Trump by more than 30 points in Iowa.

Sarah Longwell She is at her best when demonstrating her foreign policy expertise (or swatting aside Ramaswamy). She falls flat when she’s delivering canned lines about her footwear. Her answer on abortion was thoughtful and seemed likely to connect with both primary and swing voters. There is a real chance she may overtake DeSantis as the main challenger to Trump.

Daniel McCarthy She may not be Dick Cheney in three-inch heels — they’re five inches, she joked — but neoconservatives like Ambassador Haley couldn’t handle Iraq or Afghanistan, so her bravado about taking on China and Russia sounds absurd.

Jamelle Bouie Ron DeSantis cannot escape the fact that it makes no real sense to try to run as a more competent Donald Trump, for the simple reason that the entire question of competence is orthogonal to Trump’s appeal. There’s not really much of an audience in the Republican primary electorate for what DeSantis is trying to sell, and it doesn’t help him that it seems he hates being a salesman of any sort.

Gail Collins So very, very hard to imagine him moving up to … anything.

Michelle Cottle He was extra feisty, which was mostly a positive. He even landed a lighthearted line about the profusion of Social Security recipients in his state. He did nothing, however, to distinguish himself — or to slow the momentum of Nikki Haley, who has been gradually creeping up on him.

Ross Douthat He basically took the same front-running, above-the-fray approach that he’s taken in every debate, notwithstanding a couple of mild digs at Haley here, and since he’s gained zero ground in the polls with that approach, it’s time to start reducing his scores even though he was perfectly fine overall.

David French This was DeSantis’s best debate, by far. He’s dropped the relentless focus on wokeism, he’s mostly revived his traditional Republican foreign policy views (though he was the weakest on Ukraine aid of anyone not named Vivek Ramaswamy), and he was generally substantive and calm. Just once, though, I’d like to see him debate without proposing a policy that violates the Constitution. Yet there he went again, proposing plainly unconstitutional summary executions for fentanyl smugglers at the border and bragging about violating the First Amendment rights of pro-Palestinian student groups on Florida campuses. Unconstitutional policymaking is a divisive waste of time, but that remains DeSantis’s signature move.

Sarah Isgur DeSantis was good, not great. His best moment was early in the debate, when he made the case against Trump — the strongest we’ve seen him make to date. Was it enough to turn the tide of this race? Nope. But it’s the only chance he’s got to make any headway in the remaining two months before Iowa.

Sarah Longwell DeSantis was looking to capitalize on his recent endorsement from Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa. This was his strongest debate performance. He was prepared and calm, but it wasn’t nearly enough to re-energize his flailing campaign. His affect remains charmless and grumpy.

Daniel McCarthy He still seems the most presidential, and he was sharp to include the Federal Reserve among his targets for censure. But his stature doesn’t grow as these debates continue, with more ideologically clear-cut candidates like Ambassador Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy driving the discussion.

Jamelle Bouie Chris Christie seems to know that he has no realistic chance of becoming the Republican nominee, which seems to have freed him to tether his bid for the White House to something that looks a little like reality. It’s not going to work, obviously, but it does make for a somewhat interesting show.

Gail Collins Really expected something more exciting than “reasonable,” but here we are.

Michelle Cottle He was a little lower energy than usual, especially early on. Not bad, but off his game. Not that it matters.

Ross Douthat It was a reminder of the rhetorical gifts that made him a strong potential president in 2016. Unfortunately, it’s 2023 — and all he’s doing is dividing the anti-Trump vote to no real purpose, for the sake of a fourth-place finish in New Hampshire.

David French Christie has been the boldest and most outspoken Trump critic in the field, and his relative silence about Donald Trump was indicative of a profound flaw that permeated the debate. In spite of the hosts’ efforts to get the candidates to distinguish themselves from the absent front-runner, they mostly acted as if Trump did not exist. When Christie isn’t running against Trump, one wonders why he runs at all.

Sarah Isgur It’s hard to watch Christie — who is always in his element on a debate stage — and not wonder what could have been if he had run in 2012. But 11 years later, it shows just how much the Republican Party has changed that Christie is viewed as more heretic than adherent.

Sarah Longwell Without an opportunity to confront Trump directly, Christie seems to have lost his reason for running. He deserves praise for his substantive, competent answers, but there’s not much of a market for that in the Republican primaries. Onstage, he is most helpful as an ally for Nikki Haley. But in the polling, they’re splitting the relatively small share of non-MAGA voters. Christie should drop out and endorse Haley.

Daniel McCarthy His reason for running was to thwart Trump. He hasn’t done that, and his presence isn’t achieving anything else, either.

Jamelle Bouie Watching Tim Scott make his appeal is like stepping into a time machine and walking into the 2000 Republican presidential contest. With his endorsement of the Laffer curve, Scott sounds like a relic. Unfortunately for him, there’s no real appetite for the zombie Reaganism he displayed.

Gail Collins He came in second for me, entirely on the theory that he’s trying to sound like a good, boring potential vice-presidential nominee. Of course, the boring part probably comes naturally to him.

Michelle Cottle Yet another meh performance, often flabby and rambling. So many words, so little clarity. It may be that he has been too long in the Senate.

Ross Douthat At the outset of the race, I thought he was a slightly more interesting candidate than Haley, but I’ve been proved wrong. Rhetorical gifts are no substitute for a compelling rationale for a candidacy, and after three debates, we’re no closer to answering the “Why Tim Scott?” question than we were at the start.

David French I’m not sure why Scott is still in the race. Everyone else on the stage has a niche. DeSantis is still Trump’s main challenger and an avatar for the new right. Haley has a small amount of momentum and represents the Reagan remnant. Christie attacks Trump. Ramaswamy appeals to Trump. But what is Scott doing? There is nothing distinctive about his candidacy, and there’s no obvious path for him to pass either DeSantis or Haley, much less Trump.

Sarah Isgur His answers were filled with platitudes and wannabe sound bites that seemed ill suited to the moment. Months and months into this campaign, he hasn’t gotten better, and it’s still unclear why he is running.

Sarah Longwell Tim Scott continues to barely register as a candidate. He engaged with questions only when they happened to align with his domestic policy chops. Otherwise, he fell back on stump speech anecdotes from his upbringing that were compelling the first 10 times we heard them. He clearly thinks that Iowa evangelicals will save his campaign. They won’t.

Daniel McCarthy He’s right to emphasize rebuilding U.S. industry as a strategic necessity, and his remarks on support for crisis pregnancy centers were spot on. But on most issues he’s marginal to the debate and the race.

Jamelle Bouie Is Vivek Ramaswamy the most singularly insufferable person in national politics?

Gail Collins If you’re gonna be the outspoken outsider, you have to be interesting as well as loud and irritating.

Michelle Cottle I had thought it was impossible for this guy to be any more puerile and obnoxious. I was so, so wrong. One word: decaf.

Ross Douthat Underneath all the attention seeking, trolling and performative obnoxiousness, there’s a guy making some interesting points that no other Republican is making. Underneath the guy making some interesting points, alas, there’s an attention-seeking troll.

David French Ramaswamy is a right-wing Twitter thread come to life. It’s actually uncanny how much he imitates the culture, positions and manners of right-wing Twitter trolls. But he was the only one who truly seemed to channel Trump’s antiwar positions, including Trump’s contempt for Ukraine. In a debate dominated by a neoconservative revival, Ramaswamy — in both style and substance — was the only Trumpist on the stage.

Sarah Isgur Per usual, he seemed to be running for most likely to get punched in the face. Still, this may have been his strongest debate performance to date. I’m sure a lot of G.O.P. primary voters relished his attacks on the Republican National Committee and the debate moderators.

Sarah Longwell As advertised: unhinged, unserious and unpleasant. Within an hour, he went from decrying antisemitism to calling Ukraine’s Jewish president a Nazi. He referred to Haley as “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels” and faulted her because her daughter uses TikTok. “Smarmy” isn’t a strong-enough word. His stunt campaign can’t end soon enough.

Daniel McCarthy He cheekily plays the Joker while the rest of the field pretends to be Batman, and in the process he punctures the platitudes that make these debates so dull and meaningless. Vive le villain!

Source: Elections - nytimes.com