The first GOP debate: August 23, 2023

Wednesday’s night debate went almost as well as it possibly could have for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. None of his other rivals attacked him, he got out his message, and he even carved out a couple of clip-worthy moments to blast out on social media.

But his performance also illustrated his key vulnerabilities as he tries to build a coalition of voters from all wings of the party who are still skeptical of Donald Trump.

Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate also had a meta contest: Who would win the fight between traditional TV — in this case, Fox News, which broadcast the debate — and Twitter, which counterprogrammed the debate with a conversation between Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox star-turned-Twitter streamer?

This morning, I’m declaring a winner: Twitter*. And also a loser: Twitter.

When the first 2024 Republican debate started on Wednesday, the visual of the stage was striking: On it were seven men clad in dark suits and red ties, and one woman — former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley — wearing a white and blue boucle dress. Her gender immediately stood out, and during the debate Haley leveraged this distinction as an asset.

​​“I think this is exactly why Margaret Thatcher said if you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman,” Haley quipped at one point following a prolonged exchange of personal insults between former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. (Among other things, Christie said Ramaswamy sounded “like ChatGPT” in human form, while Ramaswamy accused Christie of hugging former President Barack Obama.) In that comment and others, Haley leaned into her gender as a unique selling point when it came to her leadership style, and as a factor in how she discusses policies like abortion.

For the first debate ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Republican candidates gathered on a 100-degree day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during a heat dome gripping the Midwest. Early into the televised eight-candidate forum, Fox News moderators lobbed a question pressing the presidential hopefuls for their positions on addressing climate change, an issue of growing importance for young voters in particular: “Do you believe human behavior is causing climate change? Raise your hand if you do.”

None did. That the question came up at all was surprising; it remains unusual for a Republican debate to even attempt an acknowledgment of the climate crisis. What wasn’t surprising was that the discussion immediately devolved into distraction, denial, and misinformation.

Donald Trump’s absence from the debate stage Wednesday night ultimately meant little: This is still the former president’s nomination to lose, and despite a few moments of conflict and clarity among the eight Republican presidential hopefuls onstage, no candidate emerged as a clear alternative.

Still, without the former president, the eight contenders gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were able to have a lively discussion on a range of issues: abortion bans, the reality of climate change, urban crime, K-12 education, immigration, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the rise of China. The differences between the candidates were clear, their varied experiences were on full display, and at certain points, you could see a flash of an old kind of pre-Trump Republican Party debate,deliberating over government spending, illegal immigration, and foreign policy.

It’s official: Former President Donald Trump has said that he won’t attend the upcoming Republican debate, and possibly others, raising questions about how the remaining candidates will navigate these events in his absence and what they’ll achieve at them.

“New CBS poll, just out, has me leading the field,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post over the weekend. “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES.”

The 2024 presidential election is finally picking up, as the Republican Party holds its first presidential debate, hosted by Fox News, on Wednesday.

As of Monday — the deadline to qualify —as many as11of the 14 declared candidates vying for the party’s nomination appeared tohave met the standards to participate,though the Republican National Committee eventually only confirmed eight of them on Tuesday, and the party’s frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, willnot attend.