The Florida Senate Minority Caucuses Kicks off with Debates Like Ms. Haley, Gov. DeSantis, Tim Scott and Chris Christie
Just five candidates — Gov. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy — will take the stage for the third Republican presidential debate in Miami on Wednesday.
Ms. Haley has drawn more attention in recent weeks, as other candidates — most notably former Vice President Mike Pence — have lost support or dropped out. She has a chance to overtake Mr. DeSantis to become the top Trump alternative.
The Republicans feel that Mr. Scott is the only one who has a good chance of breaking through. He’s been marginalized by other opponents and there’s a chance that the debate will be focused on Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis.
At the first two debates, the front-runner only attacked when his opponent was hit first. That might not work anymore as he is under increasing pressure to slow Ms. Haley’s rise in the polls and reassure voters who may have come to question his political agility and strength as a general election candidate.
This has been a tough stretch for the man, with the attacks on Mr. Trump from the beginning. In Miami, Mr. DeSantis won re-election as governor last year in a big way. And this week he drew the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa. The first-in-the-nation caucuses will be held in Florida on January 15.
What are you going to do? he said in an interview. “If he says something which I think is worthy of being responded to, I’ll respond to it. But I’ve now spent four hours on the debate stage with him, and I haven’t heard him say one thing worthy of being responded to.”
The Israeli Middle East Crisis as a Probe of the Establishment and Politics of the State in the House of Representatives to the Second Sesquire General Assembly
Foreign policy, with some noteworthy exceptions over the years, has not proved determinative in presidential nominating contests. The bloodshed in the Middle East is likely to be in the forefront when the debate takes place on Wednesday.
The Republican Party is split over whether the candidates will follow Mr. Trump’s path of populism or not. The candidates are likely to be asked if they agree with the first major proposal by the Speaker, which is a plan to tie money for Ukraine to a border bill.
While the Republican Party is more unified in its support for Israel (in contrast with the Democratic Party), the conflict has prompted some of the field’s sharpest criticism of Mr. Trump.
At the Republicans Jewish Coalition gathering last month, Haley accused Trump of calling Hezbollah very smart and Benjamin Netanyahu of being weak after the deadly attack by Hamas on Israeli settlers.
In the first debate, Mr. Ramaswamy proved to be a good debater but he became a target in the second debate. He doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in the race going into tonight as he is currently in the single digits in many polls. He is disliked by many of the Republican Party because he attacks Mr. Trump.
One major question is how many people will even be watching. The second debate was watched by 10 million people, about 12 million less than the first debate. Unless Mr. Trump is able to make a huge last-minute appearance, that won’t change.
The waning audience may not be a surprise because of Mr. Trump. Even though large swathes of the Republican electorate say they are willing to support someone other than Mr. Trump, the race can be seen as done before a single vote is cast.
The Miami Mardi Grassmann Finale of the First Reionization of Propagation and Abortion: The Case for Proliferation
The third Republican presidential debate devolved at times into brutal personal attacks as the five candidates onstage tried to discuss high-minded issues from the fate of Social Security to the role of America abroad between cutting asides and provocative insults.
The debate in Miami came a day after voters across the country rebuked the Republican Party, especially over abortion rights. But that issue, which drove voters to the polls in Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and elsewhere on Tuesday, did not appear until an hour and 40 minutes in.
The candidates showed the party’s differences once it happened. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina emphatically expressed support for a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Chris Christie said it should be up to the states. In a speech, the entrepreneur suggests that men should use paternity tests to force them to be responsible for pregnancies that should not be terminated.
She said that she didn’t want people to judge her for being pro-life. America does not need to be divided over this issue anymore.
Voters in Iowa will cast the first votes of the Republican primary season in little more than two months, yet the debaters continued their competition for second place rather than training their fire on the prohibitive front-runner for the Republican nomination, former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Trump did not show up for the third time and his counterprogramming was at a simultaneous rally. Aside from a few harmless jabs at Mr. Trump, the five candidates who did attend saved their harshest attacks for one another.
Source: Haley and DeSantis Take Leading Roles in Tense G.O.P. Debate
The Issue of TikTok and the Case of the U.S. Senate Inflation in the Light of the Debate on Social Media
The most heated discussion was about the issue of TikTok. After Mr. Ramaswamy bragged about using the Chinese-owned social media network to broadcast his message, he turned to his nemesis, Ms. Haley, and mocked her daughter for using the app.
But the debate did address weighty issues: whether a soaring budget deficit required a higher retirement age for access to Social Security and Medicare, how the United States should back Israel against Hamas and Ukraine against Russia, and how a president could immediately address the strain of inflation in everyday debate.
The conservative commentator Hugh Hedging demanded to know exactly how many new ships should be added to the U.S. Navy to confront China.
If the five candidates were not willing to answer why Republican voters should choose them over Mr. Trump, it was not known how they could catch him.