Vivek, Scott, Pence gained ground in GOP debate. But can anyone really catch Trump? | Opinion

Let’s get this out of the way: Donald Trump should have been on that stage.

His decision to sit out the first Republican debate Wednesday night is understandable. He is right to observe that with his massive and unshakable polling lead, he has no pressing need to field snippy barbs from candidates mired in single digits.

But he missed an opportunity — the chance to remind Republicans why they loved his presidency and why he remains the best option for bringing back the policies that have vanished under Joe Biden. Debate night would have been a chance to talk about things other than his mountain of legal challenges. Millions of voters could have heard him score points on borders, the economy and crime instead of further complaints, valid though they may be, about his persecution at the hands of hostile prosecutors.

But alas, Trump chose to spend time in an online chat with Tucker Carlson, no doubt pleased to see millions choosing to watch him rather than the debate. Meanwhile, on that stage, some fresh storylines arose.

First, it became clear early in the evening that in Trump’s absence, the target for takedowns was not Ron DeSantis but Vivek Ramaswamy. Chris Christie, whose entire campaign seems driven most days by aggression toward Trump, was much sharper in his hostility toward the 38-year-old entrepreneur’s promise to “gut the federal administrative state.”

“I’ve had enough already of a guy who sounds like Chat GPT,” he said. “The last guy who stood on the stage and described himself as a skinny guy with a funny last name, was Barack Obama. … I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur.”

That did not play well with a crowd that showed fondness for Ramaswamy early but turned on him briefly when he seemed to hog the mike in his various exchanges. Mike Pence, who enjoyed multiple spotlights on issues from Jan. 6 to abortion rights, even turned a barb against Biden into a shot at Vivek: “We don’t need a president who is too old — and we don’t need one who’s too young.”

DeSantis, who now has competition for the designation as top Trump rival, needed a stellar night to fend off the buzz that his campaign has underperformed in the three months since its kickoff. With so much oxygen gulped up by Ramaswamy’s back-and-forths and a roundtable over how Pence handled Jan. 6 as vice president, the Florida governor may not have had sufficient time to quell doubters. But time is on his side, with another debate a month away and the certainty of greater media coverage than candidates mired in single digits.

Of those candidates, the one who may have earned a boost is Tim Scott, who has generally been labeled as a solid figure but not a fighter in the mold that GOP majorities want. But amid some occasionally tense sniping, the South Carolina senator came across as the kind of measured, mature grownup who can be refreshing in an era of endless conflict and hot takes. He also finished with one of the night’s best lines, borrowed from his mother’s lessons: “If you’re able-bodied in America, you work; if you take out a loan you pay it back; if you commit a violent crime you go to jail; and if God made you a man, you play sports against men.”

Pence needed ample camera time to energize an inert campaign, and he got it, doubling down on distancing from Trump’s election challenges without weaponizing the former president’s legal obstacles against him. That fell to Christie, who repeated his declaration that Trump is morally unfit for a second term. He responded to the predictable boos: “This is the great thing about this country – booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”

Post-debate TV panels spoke well of Nikki Haley, and with good reason, but she just didn’t get enough time to draw attention to the attributes that set her apart — experience as a governor, strong foreign policy credentials as U.N. ambassador, and an interesting triangulation of pro-life passions tempered by the caution that a federal abortion ban is impractical in the short term and may hurt the party’s chances in 2024.

Those chances of taking back the White House are either heightened or damaged by the renomination of Donald Trump. No one knows which of those is true, but the candidates sought to make the case that they would be a better selection.

So, the greater question, moving forward may not be who won the debate, but can any of its participants dream of chipping away at Trump’s massive support?

This story was originally published August 24, 2023 at 9:26 AM.