What We Learned From Thursday’s GOP Debate

The GOP stage is a lot less crowded now, and the tone was a lot calmer than the candidates’ previous meeting. It’s down to four candidates in the Republican presidential primary race, and time is running out for those party leaders who want to stop front-runner Donald Trump. (He managed to mention that former candidate Ben Carson would endorse him, which happened on Friday).
During Thursday’s CNN debate in Miami, which took place less than a week before the Florida primary and other winner-take-all contests that will more heavily influence the delegate count, Sen. Marco Rubio was under pressure to make his case in his home state.
Did the debate shift the fortunes of Rubio, Trump, Ted Cruz or John Kasich in any way? Stump speeches: “Donald Trump went into victory formation mode during this debate and his opponents didn’t try and break it up as aggressively as they have in more recent debates.
“This was a much more civil occasion, with the candidates content to stick to their stump speeches, save for an occasional policy contrast. It’s hard to see how a debate like this really changes the trajectory of the race in any of the winner-take-all contests that are coming up.”
— Kevin Madden, former national press secretary for the Mitt Romney campaign https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/status/708130922390884353
tonight
, but the substance was simply wrong for the American people. In all of the screaming of their past debates, the Republican candidates got away without going into detail on the issues. Tonight, they were forced to say what they actually plan to do, and it was ugly. Republicans want to drag America backward on just about every issue.
onight’s
debate was a substantive discussion about the critical issues in this election. Contrary to the race to the left going on in the Democrat primary, our field of accomplished Republican candidates continue(s) to offer the solutions and change in direction America urgently needs. Under President Obama, our country has become less prosperous, less safe and less free, but Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to keep going down the same failed path of bigger government and a weak foreign policy.
Roll Call Race Ratings Map: Ratings for Every House and Senate Race in 2016
Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call in your inbox or on your iPhone.