Eight Republican presidential candidates will take the debate stage Wednesday night, for whatever it’s worth. And a ninth—the one currently pulling more than 50% in polls—will skip the debate but appear on Twitter in a pre-recorded interview with Tucker Carlson. Unless one of the eight on the debate stage has a big enough breakout moment to make a difference in the race or someone’s candidacy completely melts down in real time, this event seems fated to irrelevance.
Nonetheless, it is a chance for each of the participants—North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott—to try to shape the trajectories of their campaigns going forward. Each has a task.
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DeSantis has to do well enough to stop his drop in the polls and keep his campaign’s postmortem from being written after months of underperformance. Pence has to pick a side: He can go after Donald Trump, who both elevated him and tried to have him killed, or he can try to convince Trump supporters that he is not a traitor and deserves their votes.
Haley and Scott both want to sell themselves as the next generation of conservative, and as bringing an optimistic vision of American greatness. They’re competing for a lane it’s not clear has many voters in it to begin with. Christie has to attack Trump cleverly enough to get a lot of replays, and he probably has to land a hit on DeSantis as well.
Ramaswamy ideally would want to show he can hold his own, but probably avoiding embarrassment would look like a win in the wake of his 9/11 comments and failed attempt to deny them. Burgum and Hutchinson have to try to get people to realize they’re in the race to begin with—a challenge Burgum may have some unexpected help with, since due to an injury during a game of pick-up basketball, he may not be able to stand during the debate. “That guy who was sitting down” is a way to remember him, I guess, which is more than he’s had so far.
Trump, meanwhile, will be sitting at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, presumably toggling between monitoring the views his Carlson interview is drawing and watching to see who attacks him in the debate, then going on Truth Social to misrepresent both of those things. Early Wednesday, though, he was already working to direct attention to Thursday, when he will surrender in Fulton County, Georgia, and join the stream of his co-conspirators already having mugshots released:
In another message, he similarly tried to pretend he’s happy to be facing criminal charges, writing, “For the first time in three years, brave American Patriots will, in Court, be able to show how the Presidential Election of 2020 was RIGGED & STOLLEN.”
There is simply nothing Trump won’t try to turn to his own electoral benefit. And it’s true that once he’s en route to Georgia, few people will be talking about the debate he skipped.
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, meanwhile, is featuring Biden as “Dark Brandon” on billboards in Milwaukee, where the debate is being held, and in digital ads on the Fox News website. “Get real, Jack. I’m bringing Roe back,” read the online ads.
The two-hour debate begins at 9PM ET. It will air on Fox News, Fox Business, and stream on the Fox News website and subscription streaming platform. The Republican National Committee has partnered with the favored right-wing streaming site Rumble to air it as well. Daily Kos will, of course, be providing live coverage. Join us to follow the action.