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      Nikki Haley Aims to Turn Her Debate Moment Into Momentum

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      The former South Carolina governor — the only woman in the Republican field — stood out for her responses on abortion, foreign policy and Donald Trump’s indictments.Less than 30 minutes into the first Republican presidential debate, the men onstage were bickering — just as Nikki Haley predicted.“I think this is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said, ‘If you want something said, ask a man,’” quipped Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former ambassador to the United Nations. “If you want something done, ask a woman.”The response was the beginning of a standout performance for Ms. Haley, who already cut a distinct figure: the lone woman in the Republican field, standing in a white and light blue suit-style dress among a stretch of men in nearly identical red ties.Her Thatcher line — a favorite on the stump and the inspiration for the title of one of her books — captured the balance she has sought to strike between testing her party’s attitudes and not leaning too far into her gender. But Ms. Haley, who has struggled to gain traction in primary polls dominated by Donald J. Trump, did not always stay above the fray.She took swings at her rivals and offered a general-election vision for her party that seemed to intrigue some voters and pundits who were impressed with her abilities to speak authoritatively, skillfully break with the pack on some issues and give and take punches.The showing could inject some much-needed momentum into her campaign. Ms. Haley spent the next morning sitting through a blitz of interviews before she was expected in Chicago for a fund-raiser. At the very least, her allies said, the debate gave a glimpse into why she should not be discounted.“Nobody thought Nikki Haley could get elected to anything in South Carolina,” said Katon Dawson, a Haley surrogate and the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. And yet, he added, “she has never lost a race.”Here are four areas where Ms. Haley was able to land a blow and distinguish herself from the field on Wednesday night in Milwaukee.“Do not make women feel like they have to decide on this issue.”She went head-to-head with former Vice President Mike Pence on abortion, giving an impassioned defense of women and urging her rivals to stop “demonizing” the issue. As governor of South Carolina, she signed a 20-week ban on the procedure, but on Wednesday, just as she has before, she called for “consensus” on the issue.“Can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions? Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions? Can’t we all agree that doctors and nurses who don’t believe in abortion shouldn’t have to perform them?” she said, before continuing: “Can’t we all agree that contraception should be available? And can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”Ms. Haley’s attempts to lead her party on a thorny issue haven’t always resonated — partly because, her critics say, she has dodged most questions on the details of her positions. On the stage Wednesday, she broached familiar personal themes, saying she was “unapologetically pro-life” because her husband was adopted and she had trouble conceiving her two children.But when Mr. Pence sought to establish himself as the staunchest opponent of abortion, telling Ms. Haley that “consensus is the opposite of leadership,” Ms. Haley fired back that he was being dishonest about what was politically possible when it comes to Congress passing a federal ban on abortion.“When you’re talking about a federal ban, be honest with the American people,” she said, arguing that the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate meant that no Democratic or Republican president would be able to set abortion policy.The exchange underscored the deep and emotional divide that has emerged among Republicans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Though members of the party largely support that ruling, a fierce electoral backlash to more stringent state-level restrictions has made abortion a politically risky issue for Republicans.“This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country.”Some of Ms. Haley’s fiercest clashes were with Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and political newcomer, over her support for Ukraine in its effort to fight Russia’s invasion, an issue that has starkly divided the field and the party more broadly. She suggested that Mr. Ramaswamy wanted to “hand Ukraine to Russia,” and that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had killed Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group responsible for a short-lived mutiny.“This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country,” Ms. Haley said to Mr. Ramaswamy, referring to Mr. Putin, whom she also called “thug.” “You don’t do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends.”Later, she took one of the most memorable shots of the night when she told Mr. Ramaswamy: “You will make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” This drew loud applause from the audience.“They all voted to raise the debt, and Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt.”On the campaign trail, Ms. Haley often tells crowds that it is time to put an accountant like herself in the White House. On Wednesday, as her rivals blamed President Biden and Democrats for economic policies that they said had driven up the cost of food and gasoline, Ms. Haley criticized both Republicans and Democrats for increasing the nation’s spending and debt.“The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us,” she said. “Our Republicans did this to us when they passed that $2.2 trillion Covid stimulus bill.”Mr. Biden shared a clip of Ms. Haley in which she said her rivals — Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence, Mr. DeSantis and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina — had all fueled the national debt increase. “What she said,” the president said on X, formerly known as Twitter.Economists largely agree that Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic rescue plan in 2021 contributed to the highest inflation rate in decades. But they spread the blame to stimulus passed under Mr. Trump and monetary stimulus by the Federal Reserve, along with disruptions to supply chains caused by Covid-19.The issues of debt and spending, along with calls for greater transparency in government, were part of Ms. Haley’s stunning come-from-behind-victory in 2010 when she was elected governor. That year, Ms. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, rode the Tea Party wave to become the first woman and first person of color to lead South Carolina — as well as the youngest governor of any state at the time.“We have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America.”Ms. Haley elicited some boos from the arena audience when she called for “a new generational conservative leader,” pointing out “that-three quarters of Americans don’t want a rematch between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden.”“We have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America,” she said. “We can’t win an election that way.”In an interview with the Fox News host Sean Hannity after the debate, Ms. Haley appealed to Republican primary voters to back a candidate other than Mr. Trump, whom she cast as an unsure bet against Mr. Biden.She said that she believed the criminal indictments against Mr. Trump were politically motivated, but that the cases could nevertheless take him off the campaign trail.“I served with him, I was proud to serve with him, I agree with him on most issues and he’s my friend,” Ms. Haley said of the former president. “But the reality is we cannot afford Joe Biden.” More

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      Nikki Haley Is the Best Trump Alternative

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      I have a bunch of friends and acquaintances who are Never Trump, maybe-Trump or kind-of-Trump Republicans. They’ve been looking around for the candidate they can support and give their dollars to, somebody who is an antidote to Donald Trump and who can win a general election.We’ve had endless conversations about who this person might be. Many of these friends and acquaintances went through a Ron DeSantis phase. A few like the No Labels third candidate option. I’ve often found myself talking up Tim Scott with them. If Trump is a moral stain, I would say, Tim Scott is the kind, honest and optimistic remedy.But Wednesday’s debate persuaded me that the best Trump alternative is not Scott, it’s Nikki Haley. Nothing against Scott, he just didn’t show the specific kind of power and force needed to bring down Trump. Haley showed more than a glimpse of that power.Wednesday’s debate illustrated the cancer that is eating away at the Republican Party. It’s not just Trumpian immorality. The real disease is narcissistic hucksterism. The real danger is that he’s creating generations of people, like Vivek Ramaswamy, who threaten to dominate the G.O.P. for decades to come.Ramaswamy has absolutely no reason to be running for president. He said that Trump is the best president of the 21st century. So why is he running against the man he so admires? The answer is: To draw attention to himself. Maybe to be Trump’s vice president or secretary of social media memes.If Trump emerged from the make-believe world of pro wrestling, Ramaswamy emerges from the make-believe world of social media and the third-rate sectors of the right-wing media sphere. His statements are brisk, in-your-face provocations intended to produce temporary populist dopamine highs. It’s all performative show. Ramaswamy seems as uninterested in actually governing as his idol.Republicans have been unable to take down Trump because they haven’t been able to rebut and replace the core Trump/Ramaswamy ethos — that politics is essentially a form of entertainment. But time and again, Haley seemed to look at the Trump/Ramaswamy wing and implicitly say: You children need to stop preening and deal with reality. She showed total impatience for the kind of bravado that the fragile male ego manufactures by the boatload.Haley dismantled Ramaswamy on foreign policy. It was not only her contemptuous put-down: “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” She took on the whole America First ethos that sounds good as a one-liner but that doesn’t work when you’re governing a superpower. Gesturing to Ramaswamy, she said, “He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don’t do that to friends.”Similarly on abortion, many of her opponents took the issue as a chance to perform self-righteous bluster — to make the issue about themselves. She was the only one who acknowledged the complexity of the issue, who tried to humanize people caught in horrible situations, who acknowledged that the absolutist position is politically unsustainable.She was the candidate brave enough to state the obvious truth that Trump took decades of G.O.P. fiscal conservative posturing and he blew it to smithereens. The other candidates assumed the usual conservative postures about cutting taxes and spending, but she introduced the reality: Under Trump, the G.O.P. added $8 trillion to the national debt. Where have you been the last seven years?That was part of a larger accomplishment. She seems to be one of the few candidates who understands that to run against Trump you have to run against Trump. Many of the other candidates, especially Ron DeSantis, seem to have absorbed the pernicious Trumpian assumption that Republican voters are so stupid that they can be won over by hokum. DeSantis is a smart guy trying to run as a simpleton. Haley, by contrast, seems to believe that voters are intelligent enough to be treated as adults.I’m trying to point to an overall pattern. When politics becomes entertainment, it’s very easy to create a land of make-believe in which you get high on your own supply. To follow Trump, you more or less have to say farewell to the actual world and live by the rules of the fun house carnival. Haley seems to have her feet still planted on the ground — able to face what Saul Bellow once called “the reality situation.”My largest question about Haley is: Does she know what year it is? The most interesting exchange of the night was between Ramaswamy and Mike Pence. Ramaswamy, to his credit, was talking about the nation’s mental health crisis and the national identity crisis that lies beneath it. Pence waved all that talk about the loss of meaning and purpose as so much woo-woo, and argued that the real problem is that government is not as good as the people. Pence, like many in the field, is still living in the age of Reagan, or at the latest, the Tea Party. They haven’t reoriented their focus to the sorts of concerns that are most important to heartland voters without a college degree. They don’t understand why the old Republican orthodoxy was so fragile in the face of Trump. They haven’t faced the new realities that have emerged this century.Has Haley? Too soon to tell. But if any of my friends and acquaintances want to stop Trump, this is their moment to give Haley her chance.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      On Immigration, Republican Candidates Show Little Disagreement at Debate

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      Donald Trump’s signature issue from 2016 still reverberates powerfully and prompts aggressive rhetoric on ways to shore up the southern U.S. border.Asked whether he would send special forces into Mexico to combat drug cartels, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida didn’t hesitate to swing for the fences.“Yes, and I will do it on day one,” he said.He pledged to declare a national emergency and added: “When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that is going to be the last thing they do. We are going to use force and leave them stone-cold dead.”Republicans participating in the first presidential debate on Wednesday traded barbs and clashed repeatedly over abortion, climate change and how much fealty they owe to former President Donald J. Trump.But, when it came to immigration, there was little disagreement, only efforts to outdo each other in offering aggressive recommendations for military responses to unauthorized immigration and drug trafficking across the southern border. The overwhelming majority of illicit substances are brought into the United States in commercial vehicles coming through official ports of entry, rather than by migrants, according to law enforcement.Former Vice President Mike Pence did say that the United States would partner with the Mexican military, “and we will hunt down and destroy the cartels that are claiming lives in the United States.”During the debate, there were almost no evocations of immigration as one of the triumphant strains in the American tapestry, just a steady drumbeat of menace. In part, that reflects the degree to which Donald Trump’s signature issue has become so ingrained in the Republican playbook and psyche.But it also reflects the steady toll from drugs smuggled across the border, especially fentanyl, and the bitter trail of addiction and death that has stalked Americans across barriers of race, geography and class.As a result, like so much else in Republican politics, proposals that were once fringe have become mainstream since Mr. Trump made the border a core issue of his 2016 campaign and, once elected, of his domestic political agenda.Cars lining up to cross into the U.S. via Tijuana, Mexico, earlier this year. Drug smuggling across the border has been cited by Republican candidates as a main reason to secure the border.Guillermo Arias/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRepublican candidates in this campaign cycle have picked up his baton, embracing ideas that would have been deemed unthinkable before the Trump presidency.For months, they have amped up their rhetoric about the southern border, raising the prospect of sending military troops to target drug cartels and stop what they call an invasion of migrants. And polls show growing frustration among many demographic groups, including Democrats, about the influx of migrants, which has created chaotic scenes at the border in recent years and strained cities, from New York to Denver, where many of the arrivals have ended up.But there are clear partisan divides, with two-thirds of Republicans saying that there should be fewer immigrants and asylum-seekers allowed into the country, compared to about a quarter of Democrats, according to an Associated Press poll earlier this year.A poll by Gallup in July found that the percentage of Americans who believe immigration is a “good thing” is the lowest since 2014. The poll found a growing minority — 41 percent — of Americans believe immigration should be decreased, with Republicans far more likely to say so than Democrats. Still, a majority of Americans polled remain largely supportive of immigration and opposed to decreasing the number of immigrants.The political fallout has been especially sharp in New York, where more than 100,000 migrants have arrived, with nearly 60,000 of those staying in shelters.A poll released this week by the Siena College Research Institute found that large majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents in both the city and upstate New York believe the migrants, many of them asylum-seekers, pose a “serious problem” for the state.Roughly 46 percent of voters said that migrants resettling in New York in the last two decades have been more of a “burden” than a “benefit” to the state. Nearly 60 percent said that “New Yorkers have already done enough for new migrants and should now work to slow the flow” rather than “accept new migrants and work to assimilate them into New York.”Unauthorized border crossings have declined in recent months, a result of measures that the Biden administration has introduced to enable people to enter the United States in a more orderly fashion, such as by making an appointment on a government mobile app for an interview with U.S. authorities at the border or being sponsored by a relative already in the country.During Wednesday’s debate, the fentanyl crisis loomed large, with the candidates invoking overdose deaths as emblematic of the border crisis.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina called for firing 87,000 newly hired I.R.S. agents and doubling the number of border patrol agents. “The most pressing need of the American people is our southern border,” he said.“If we spend $10 billion, we could finish the wall,” he said. “For $5 billion more, we could have the military-grade technology to surveil our southern border to stop the flow of fentanyl and save 70,000 Americans a year. “Vivek Ramaswamy, who has called for securing the border by any means necessary, including with military force, said that resources the United States has been sending to Ukraine should be employed instead to “protect against the invasion across our southern border.”Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, called for the detention of everyone entering the country unlawfully.But in a rare sentiment respectful of immigration at the debate, he said, “We have so many wonderful people from around the world who are waiting in line following the law to try to come here and pursue the American dream. Those people are waiting and waiting and waiting because we haven’t dealt with the problem of the folks who are here.”President Biden has repeatedly reminded Americans that only Congress can fix the broken immigration system. But, in an increasingly polarized political environment, prospects for a legislative solution backed by both parties have only become dimmer. More

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      Our Writers Pick the Winners, Losers and ‘the Star of the Evening’ From the First Republican Debate

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      Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for the first Republican presidential primary candidate debate, held in Milwaukee on Wednesday night. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers and contributors rank 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 […] More

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      It’s Clear That Ron DeSantis Is No Longer on the Rise, but Someone Else Is

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      In a crowded debate, you can tell which candidates are seen as the greatest threat because they take the most incoming fire from their rivals.During the Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday night, that person wasn’t Ron DeSantis, who was once considered Donald Trump’s greatest threat, but Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old political upstart with little chance of actually securing the nomination.Watching the DeSantis campaign collapse has been an extraordinarily edifying spectacle.There would have been no DeSantis without Trump. Trump endorsed DeSantis for governor of Florida when DeSantis was struggling against a strong Republican opponent for the party’s nomination. DeSantis rode Trump’s endorsement to victory.So, there was always something in the DeSantis campaign that knew that he was Macbeth coming to kill his king. The only problem was that DeSantis had ambition, but not the bloodlust. He lacks the courage, which is ironic given that he wrote a book before his run titled “The Courage to Be Free.”Instead of making the case to voters that Trump was unfit, he is counting on Trump’s martyrdom being his downfall. His gamble has yet to pay off.In addition, DeSantis has a chronic personality problem. He simply doesn’t connect with people. He smiles the way a Doberman bares its teeth: It feels forced, aggressive and dangerous. You feel like you should retreat from it. And when he’s not forcing a smile, he reflexively scowls. He has a resting wince face.He is not just emotionally aloof, but completely detached. He abides in aggression because the rest of the emotional range has either atrophied or failed to develop in the first place. In fact, during debate prep in 2018, one of his advisers told him that on the debate stage he would need to write “LIKABLE” in all caps at the top of his note pad.On Wednesday, DeSantis dispensed with that advice. He leaned into the aggression. But no one engaged. No one even responded. He was largely ignored by the other candidates, and the only thing that cuts deeper than disparagement is indifference.Instead, Ramaswamy was the target onstage, and he ate up the attention.Ever since the rise of Barack Obama and Republicans’ unseemly reaction to it, the party has entertained exotica. In 2011, Herman “9-9-9” Cain surged in the G.O.P. field for a while. In 2015, Ben “no Muslims as president” Carson led Trump in the polls for a moment.They are the amuse-bouche, the tasty appetizer before the party gets serious and sits for the meal.Now it is Ramaswamy’s turn.At one point, Chris Christie attempted to insult Ramaswamy by saying that “the last person at one of these debates who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here,’ was Barack Obama, and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur.”Ramaswamy glowed at the comparison and shot back: “Give me a hug just like you did to Obama, and you’ll help elect me just like you did to Obama too.”Let’s be clear: Vivek, you are no Barack.You have a shallow, CliffsNotes understanding of the issues, but because you speak with speed and confidence, polished diction and a toothy grin, the incoherence is disguised by the delivery. Ramaswamy is the kind of person who gets hired for charisma rather than competence.At points, it seems obvious that he is being intentionally contrarian, outlandish and provocative in his proposals and pronouncements in order to provoke a reaction and garner more attention. In doing so, he is the personification of click bait.He is also positioning himself as inseparable from Trump. Not a competitor of Trump, but a superfan. He doesn’t want to replace him; he wants to merge with him. Ramaswamy is so close to the former president that he’s like the joey in the pouch to Trump’s kangaroo.This ingratiates him not only to Trump’s voters but to Trump himself, because Trump appreciates nothing more than devotion and loyalty.This had to hurt DeSantis. He is consumed by a class complex. As DeSantis wrote in his book, he was a “blue-collar kid,” an every-Sunday-service Catholic, who made his way to the Ivy League, where he believed his wealthy classmates looked down on the working class as not “sufficiently sophisticated.” He is still fighting to prove that he belongs, to prove that his worldview is not only valid but superior.And along comes Ramaswamy, also wealthier and more polished than him, to once again steal his shine, to make him feel small and insignificant.There were points during the debate when Ramaswamy sparred with Mike Pence and Chris Christie while literally looking past DeSantis as if he wasn’t there.DeSantis didn’t crash and burn Wednesday night. He made no real errors. He stayed on message and forcefully delivered his points. But the debate delivered its own point to him: His star is setting while another rises.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Today’s Top News: The Republican Debate Winners and Losers, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.The eight Republican participants attempted to create a Trump-free zone — an alternative political universe where the party’s race turned on issues, ideology and biography.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:Republicans at the First Debate Couldn’t Avoid Trump, but Tussled Over the Issues, with Lisa LererPlane Linked to Wagner Chief Prigozhin PlummetsJapan Starts Releasing Radioactive Fukushima Water, with Motoko RichEli Cohen More

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      Republicans’ Debate Clashes Highlight Party’s Policy Splits

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      At the first presidential debate for the 2024 race, the rivals were divided over issues including Ukraine, abortion and the economy.The Republican presidential candidates clashed on Wednesday night over military support for Ukraine, government spending, abortion policy and the behavior of former President Donald J. Trump — who declined to participate — while uniting to assail the agenda of President Biden in the first primary debate of the 2024 election cycle.The debate, which grew contentious and fiery at times, underscored the rifts within the Republican Party and the sharp policy shifts that the United States could experience if Mr. Biden is defeated by one of his Republican challengers next year. The candidates generally painted a dark picture of a United States gripped by inflation and an influx of immigrants. But fault lines emerged over how forcefully to confront Russia, how far abortion restrictions should go, the causes of climate change and the fate of Mr. Trump, who was described by one moderator as the “elephant not in the room.”Although the candidates are still refining their policy platforms, the debate offered the first glimpse at how their agendas would differ from one another and from a second Trump administration.What to do about TrumpMost of the candidates responded cautiously when asked if they would support Mr. Trump if he is convicted of any crimes but wins the party’s nomination. But the most direct clash over the issue was between Vivek Ramaswamy, the upstart businessman, and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey.Mr. Ramaswamy emerged as an ardent defender of Mr. Trump, calling him the best president of the 21st century and accusing Mr. Biden of sending a police force after him. Mr. Christie, who was met with boos from the audience, responded that Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results were beneath the office of the presidency and that he would always uphold the Constitution.The debate then shifted to the question of whether Mr. Trump should be pardoned of any crimes. Mr. Ramaswamy said unequivocally that if elected, he would pardon the former president, while Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s former vice president, suggested that he would consider it if Mr. Trump showed contrition for his actions.The line of questioning was especially tricky for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has tried to steer clear of commenting on Mr. Trump’s legal troubles. When pressed to answer whether Mr. Pence did the correct thing when he certified the 2020 election, Mr. DeSantis eventually acknowledged that the former vice president did his duty and then quickly tried to move on.The uncertain fate of Ukraine aidThe stakes of the presidential election are particularly high for Ukraine, which is heavily reliant on U.S. support to fend off Russia’s invasion. Without offering many specifics, Mr. Trump has suggested that he would broker a deal to quickly end the war, and on Wednesday his rivals were deeply divided over whether to continue providing Ukraine with military and economic aid.The argument over Ukraine highlighted how the views within the Republican Party over foreign policy have diverged between the more anti-interventionist, “American First” wing and the camp that wants to extend American influence around the world and promote democracy.Mr. DeSantis said that additional support for Ukraine should be contingent on Europe’s providing more aid. Mr. Ramaswamy said that he would not support an increase in funding, calling the situation “disastrous” and declaring that the money should be redirected to protect the U.S. southern border.However, Mr. Pence, Mr. Christie and Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, offered forceful cases for defending Ukraine. Mr. Christie described the atrocities that he saw during a visit to Ukraine this month, and Mr. Pence said that the United States needed to stop President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from spreading totalitarianism around the world.Ms. Haley called Mr. Putin a murderer and said that allowing Ukraine to fall would empower other American adversaries, such as China.Putting limits on abortionAbortion continues to be a fraught topic for Republicans. They have been generally supportive of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, but they have differing opinions about whether anti-abortion measures should be left to the states and how far they should go.Republicans are under pressure from anti-abortion activists to endorse a 15-week federal ban; however, several Republicans oppose such bans.Mr. DeSantis demurred when asked about whether he would support a six-week federal ban and criticized Democrats for backing abortions later in pregnancy. Ms. Haley described the notion of a federal ban as unrealistic, suggesting that Republicans would never have sufficient votes to pass such legislation. She also called for lawmakers to stop “demonizing” people over the issue and work toward a consensus around adoption and contraception policies.Other candidates, such as Mr. Pence, took more ardent positions on abortion. Supporting a 15-week federal ban — which he has challenged his rivals to embrace — the former vice president called curbing abortions a “moral issue” that should not be left to the states. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina echoed that sentiment, saying that it would be “unethical” for a president to be supportive of states such as California and New York that allow abortions further along in pregnancy.Bashing ‘Bidenomics’The biggest area of agreement among the Republican candidates was on the economy, which they said was failing because of higher prices and interest rates that have made it harder to buy houses and cars.None of the candidates have released detailed economic plans, but all of them are broadly supportive of extending the 2017 tax cuts that are scheduled to expire in 2025 and rolling back regulations. Onstage, they also agreed that the national debt, which has topped $32 trillion, is a serious problem facing the economy.Republicans usually blame big-spending Democrats for the national debt, but on Wednesday night Ms. Haley pointed a finger at members of her own party. She called out Republicans for passing more than $2 trillion in pandemic spending in 2020 and said that Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott have all backed policies that have added to the national debt.Calling for spending cuts and an end to earmarks, Ms. Haley said it was disingenuous to point to Democrats as solely responsible for the nation’s debt burden.“The truth is that Biden did not do this to us,” Ms. Haley said. “Our Republicans did this to us, too.” More

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      Who Won the Debate?

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      Commentators largely agreed that little seemed to alter the state of a race in which Donald J. Trump appears the runaway favorite.The first Republican debate on Wednesday night offered political pundits a bit of a thought experiment: If the clear front-runner doesn’t take part, can the debate have a clear winner?Even as commentators spent the debate and its aftermath arguing over which of the eight underdogs on the debate stage performed best, they largely agreed that little seemed to alter the state of a race in which Donald J. Trump appears the runaway favorite.Still, some pundits said that Mr. Trump’s absence did offer candidates the chance to differentiate themselves, an opportunity they may not have had if he had participated. And the battle to become Mr. Trump’s top challenger, some said, is more hazy. Here is a sampling of commentary on how the candidates fared.Ron DeSantisGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in some ways entered Wednesday’s debate with the most to prove and the most to lose. While he has long been viewed as Mr. Trump’s strongest potential challenger, his campaign has stumbled in recent weeks amid fund-raising trouble and staffing changes.But while Mr. DeSantis may have seemed like the apparent leader among this group of hopefuls, political pundits noted that he largely evaded the serious criticism or attacks that rivals usually level at would-be front-runners.Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, said during the debate that he expected Mr. DeSantis to “deal with constant incoming” attacks. By the end, Mr. Lowry said that Mr. DeSantis had “helped himself” by sticking to his message — and took “no incoming fire.”Other observers noted Mr. DeSantis’s ability to stay in comfortable territory, trumpeting his conservative track record in Florida as proof that he could steer the Republican Party to success.Mary Katharine Ham, a journalist and conservative commentator, called Mr. DeSantis’s strategy “effective.”“Gimme a topic. Yeah, I did that thing. Let me tell you what I did. It happened in Florida. Results,” she said, summarizing his approach.Still, some wondered whether the lack of attacks against Mr. DeSantis heralded a new phase in the race.“Ron DeSantis was the leading candidate — still is the leading candidate — on that stage tonight,” Jen Psaki, a former press secretary for President Biden, said on MSNBC. “And they basically ignored him.”Vivek RamaswamyVivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur with no government experience, was the center of a number of contentious debate exchanges, seeming to enjoy being attacked as much as he appeared to relish going after experienced candidates over their records. But whether his scrappy, off-the-cuff sparring style helped him was a matter of disagreement.Ms. Psaki said that Mr. Ramaswamy might appeal to voters by coming off as among the most unscripted of the bunch. He has “a little life in him, he talks like a human being, he says what he thinks and he pushes back on other people,” she observed.David Urban, a Republican lobbyist who advised Mr. Trump in 2016, said on CNN that Mr. Ramaswamy’s visibility made him a “big winner.”But on the flip side, some suggested that voters might find his aggressiveness off-putting.“I think Vivek coming out and just taking on everyone on that stage, that is pretty gutsy,” Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host, said. “I mean, maybe some people were annoyed by it,” she added, “but I thought it was pretty gutsy.”Nikki HaleyMr. Ramaswamy’s approach also helped call attention to some of his more established rivals, particularly Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump.Though Ms. Haley’s campaign has so far struggled to gain traction, many political observers said that she stood out on the debate stage by presenting herself as a voice of reason, particularly when she battled with Mr. Ramaswamy over his views on foreign policy.“He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, let China eat Taiwan, stopped funding Israel,” Ms. Haley said. “You don’t do that to friends.”Her comments drew notice. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications director for Mr. Trump, said on CNN that Ms Haley “really took Vivek to the woodshed.”Others noted that Ms. Haley, the only woman on the debate stage, spoke with authority on abortion, when she accused other candidates of being impractical and ignoring the effect their rhetoric might have on women.“I think Nikki is going to get a second look from some people based on some stuff she said tonight on abortion,” Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to Mr. Trump, said on Fox News. “I’m very pro-life, but I like what she said — that you don’t demonize or punish women. That’s important.”Donald TrumpThe largest question looming over Wednesday’s debate was whether Mr. Trump’s absence would be a misfire that might allow another candidate to claim the spotlight and generate more support.By and large, political experts, even those who don’t have favorable views of Mr. Trump, agreed that was not the case.Amy Walter, the publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report, offered a stark assessment, saying that “Trump has to be pretty happy with this debate.” She suggested that none of the candidates “made their case” to voters open to other options.Speaking on CNN, David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, said that Mr. Trump “won big” after the debate, with “no one emerging as his principal opponent.”Brendan Buck, a G.O.P. political strategist critical of Mr. Trump, said that “perhaps the biggest failure here tonight is nothing was done to make Donald Trump feel like he needs to participate in the next debate.”For Rob Godfrey, a longtime Republican strategist based in South Carolina, Mr. Trump’s absence was a missed opportunity to dismiss his political rivals.“There is no reason to believe he couldn’t have pulled off the same standup comedy routine he used to dominate every primary debate eight years ago,” Mr. Godfrey said in an interview.Anjali Huynh More