Contents
One of the questions before the first televised debate by the Republican candidates (and one female candidate) for the Republican presidential nomination was whether Donald Trump would regret his absence. The answer is: no.
Neither was the “elephant that’s not in the room” (as Fox News host Bret Baier introduced it) attacked in absentia over charges. Nor did anyone else stand out in a way that would make Trump feel threatened.
The Vivek moment
The man most likely to have been the focus of the debate was 38-year-old businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who was previously relatively unknown to the general US public. Ramaswamy was supple and attacking.
Whenever the debate turned into something of a slightly heated exchange between the candidates, Ramaswamy was involved. He explicitly positioned himself as a “non-politician”. But that is exactly what was shown: Ramaswamy was too light-weight on political issues to be dangerous to Trump.
The spared DeSantis
But Vivek Ramaswamy was perhaps the candidate most likely to appeal to the Republican Party’s pro-Trump base. Along with Ron DeSantis. The governor of Florida, who once started out as the greatest hope of Trump-weary people in the Republican party, but is now struggling from poll low to poll low, did better in the debate than some had expected.
DeSantis’ answers sometimes seemed a bit rehearsed, and he avoided all controversial topics such as climate change, Ukraine and above all the Trump question. But the longer the debate went on, the more comfortable DeSantis seemed to feel. Probably also because he was surprisingly little attacked by his opponents.
Trump sends emails
But Donald Trump needn’t worry about any of this. His former UN ambassador Nikki Haley presented himself as the voice of reason and compromise. His former Vice President, Mike Pence, received the most speaking time, and his declared opponent, Chris Christie, was the most adept debater.
But shortly after the end of the debate, the Trump team was able to confidently send an email calling the event a “second-place debate”. Not many will probably disagree.