He great winner of the second debate between Republican candidates for the 2024 nomination was again this Wednesday, as in the first, who was absent: Donald Trump. The former president and favorite has decided not to participate in these debates, hiding behind his advantage in the polls and the strategy gives him results, as he maintains his overwhelming advantage on rivals. And nothing seen this Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley (California) in two hours full of hostility and punctuated by chaos points out that things are going to change. In fact, a Trump collaborator has already announced that the favorite He will not participate in the third, on November 8 in Miami.
Trump, who had decided to counterschedule this Wednesday’s debate by going to Michigan, the scene of a motor workers’ strike and where the day before Joe Biden became the first active president to join a picket line, reviled in his speech there debaters as only “job candidates” in his second Administration. And it is a low blow, but just three and a half months since the first primary election date in the Iowa caucuses, the truth is that all the candidates offer is a fight for second placewhich currently occupies the Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Haley, on the rise
If anyone is supporting that fight, it is Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who served for Trump as ambassador to the UN. In some surveys on a potential duel with Biden she comes out well. In the first debate she showed his chart and presented her message in a firm conservatism but far removed, even formally, from Trumpist populism. And in this second she has been one of the undoubted protagonists, something that has also been ratified by the trump campaignwho sent during the debate only one email, to attack her.
Haley has criticized DeSantis for opposing fracking and has had a tense confrontation with her state senator, Tim Scott, who had accused her of having spent $50,000 on curtains at her residence while she was ambassador in New York. But above all it has been launched to the jugular of Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaire entrepreneur who stood out in the first debate and attacked his contenders left and right and in this second, despite trying to raise the flag of peace, has verified the animadversion that has been earned.
Ramaswamy has been questioned for having done business with China and also for having opened a account on Tik Tok (arguing that we must reach young people, although he has proposed raising the voting age to 25). And there Haley left one of the phrases of the night: “Every time I hear you I feel a little more stupid because of what you say.
Beyond the fireworks, the debate has not had much substance. The fractures over Ukrainethey have attacked Biden’s economic and environmental policies, and messages have been renewed about hard line on immigration. Chris Christiethe former governor of New Jersey, has once again been the first to criticize Donald Trump for his absence of the debate, a line of attack that DeSantis has joined.
But the former president’s complaints have remained superficial and other issues that affect Trump, his criminal charges to other legal problems, they have not had space in two hours of discussion. Not even his rivals have taken the opportunity to try to harm the favorite for his criticism of some anti-abortion positions extreme when the issue of abortion has already come up almost at the end of the debate.
Nor have the three moderators (two from Fox and one from Univision) raised any questions about the former president and favorite until, three minutes from the end, they reminded those present that “If everyone stays (in the race) Trump wins”. As if they were on ‘Survivors’, the Fox moderator then urged those present to write on a piece of paper the name of the candidate they thought should be “expelled from the island”. Haley then raised an incredulous “Are you serious?” and DeSantis has led the rebellion against degradation. Only Christie has ended up saying that he would fire Trump.
Trump is not only still on the island. He is winning.
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