Key events
“I love all the attention, fellas, thank you for that,” said Haley, as DeSantis and Ramaswamy piled on her about cybersecurity and her corporate donations.
Ankita Rao
Vivek Ramaswamy made a splash in the first Republican debate, but what some considered witty, antiestablishment repartee has now been deemed bullying. A low point for Ramaswamy came after he evoked Nikki Haley’s daughter’s TikTok account in the last debate. As Ramaswamy continues to drop in polls and popularity, some are waiting to see if he will change tact.
Megyn Kelly next asked Nikki Haley about donations from corporate interests – a line of questioning that would be more common on a Democratic debate stage.
Haley said she would take support wherever she gets it: “Look, we will take support from anybody we can.”
Fact check: DeSantis claims he won biggest Republican margin in Florida in 2018
Ankita Rao
DeSantis claimed he won the biggest Republican margin in Florida in 2018. However, in that race Ron DeSantis’s opponent, Andrew Gillum, was found mired in a drug and sex scandal just before the election, and still lost by a slim margin.
The first question is for DeSantis, about why his campaign has been faltering.
DeSantis retorted that he’s “sick” of the polls, and that voters will decide, “not pundits or pollsters”. He also heaped on a heavy dose of transphobia, implying that Haley hadn’t gone far enough to curb transgender rights. His Super Pac had previewed this line to reporters ahead of the debate.
The fourth GOP debate kicks off
Here we go!
Ahead of the debate, the Biden-Harris campaign suggested that few voters would be paying attention tonight, given that the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump won’t be on stage.
But they highlighted Trump’s recent comments saying he’d be a “dictator” on day one if he wins the election. “Tonight’s debate may just be a sideshow, but one thing is certain – every Republican on stage tonight is desperate to mirror Donald Trump’s Maga agenda that would wreck the American economy and make life harder for and more expensive for middle-class families,” said Quentin Fulks, the Biden-Harris principal deputy campaign manager.
DeSantis has some fresh debate practice.
Last week, he participated in a heated televised debate with California Democratic governor and strategic rival Gavin Newsom. It aired on Fox News, and was moderated by no other than Sean Hannity.
As my colleague Martin Pengelly wrote:
The hard-right contender for the Republican presidential nomination took the stage in Georgia on Thursday for a debate one eager website dubbed “The Vendetta in Alpharetta.”
But the Florida governor’s opponent was not Donald Trump, the former president and clear primary frontrunner, or any other Republican contender. His opponent was Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, who is not seeking his party’s nomination next year, given Joe Biden’s grip on the White House.
Both governors smiled for the cameras then attacked from the off, often seeking to tie their opponent to the looming presidential race.
The Florida governor brought a more aggressive energy to that debate than has been characteristic of his previous Republican debate performances. We’ll see if he brings that same energy to the stage tonight.
Lauren Gambino
The three previous debates have so far failed to pull Republican voters away from Trump, who maintains a dominant lead in national and early-state polls with six weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses launch the 2024 GOP nomination calendar.
A national Monmouth University poll released on Wednesday before the debate found Trump 40 percentage points ahead of DeSantis, his next closest rival. Nodding to her momentum on the campaign trail, the poll found Haley’s standing rose the most since July, climbing nine points from 3%.
The vast majority of Republican voters said Trump would be the strongest candidate against Joe Biden, including four in 10 Republicans who currently support another candidate. Further complicating the path to the nomination, supporters of Trump’s Republican rivals are divided on whether the remaining candidates should stay in the race or coalesce around a single alternative.
Can Haley convince skeptical Republicans?
Lauren Gambino
Nikki Haley is hoping to build on her campaign’s momentum after a series of strong debate performances. In recent weeks, she has closed in on DeSantis, pulling ahead of him in New Hampshire, while winning over Wall Street donors and racking up endorsements from anti-Trump Republicans, including Americans for Prosperity Action, the political network founded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.
“The moment we face requires a tested leader with the governing judgment and policy experience to pull our nation back from the brink,” Emily Seidel, senior adviser to Americans for Prosperity Action, the political arm of the Koch network, wrote in a memo first reported by the New York Times. “Nikki Haley is that leader.”
All this means she will likely be in DeSantis’ crosshairs this evening, as the two battle it out for top Trump alternative. But then again, the former president remains the frontrunner by 40 percentage points, per the national Monmouth University poll released on Wednesday – meaning that everyone on stage has a steep hill to climb as the primaries kick off.
How to watch the debate
Wednesday’s debate begins at 8pm ET and will run for approximately two hours.
The debate will stream on NewsNation, an upstart cable news outlet that started in 2021. The event will also be broadcast live on the CW network in the eastern half of the US, and tape-delayed in the west.
The moderators are Elizabeth Vargas, a NewNation anchor and former ABC personality; Megyn Kelly, host of The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM; and Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site.
Haley, DeSantis, Christie and Ramaswamy set for fourth Republican debate
Four Republicans candidates are set to take the debate stage in Alabama.
Just a month and a half ahead of the Iowa caucuses, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will all seek to position themselves as the top alternative to Donald Trump. The former president, who is leading in polls by a strong margin, will once again not be participating.
Haley will be a candidate to watch. Having won over key donors, she is coming out ahead of DeSantis in some key polls. DeSantis, meanwhile, will have to assuage donors and show voters that he still has a fighting chance. None of the candidates, however, are particularly popular – a Washington Post analysis found, in fact, that no previous primary debate had centered on such unpopular candidates.
Follow along for live coverage and analysis.
