early and often

What Each Republican Needs to Do in the Second Debate

Candidates not named Donald Trump yuk it up at last month’s debate in Milwaukee. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The second Republican presidential candidate debate hosted by Fox Business and Univision will unfold for two hours on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, beginning at 9 p.m. ET. Given the site, we can expect a question (perhaps the first question) to involve Ronald Reagan’s legacy as a president and as a Republican leader.

Front-runner Donald Trump will again skip the debate, and will again “counter-program” to drain away viewers and coverage, this time via a speech to non-union autoworkers in Detroit (apparently beginning an hour before the debate). One of the variables worth watching for in Simi Valley is how much attention is paid to the absent former president by moderators and candidates alike.

Now that the RNC has confirmed that last-minute qualifier Doug Burgum has made the cut, seven candidates who appeared at the first debate in Milwaukee (all but Asa Hutchinson) will again make the stage. Here’s what each of them need to accomplish in the debate:

Ron DeSantis: Regain His Status as Trump’s Chief Rival

This debate could help define the Florida governor as either a has-been who is Trump roadkill and ripe for replacement by another candidate before voters vote, or a sturdy pol whose effort to outflank Trump on the right will eventually pay dividends in Iowa and beyond. He needs both a first look from less attentive Republican voters leaning toward Trump and a second look from activists and donors who may have written him off as clumsy and impersonal.

DeSantis and his team of Ted Cruz ’16 alumni also have a strategic decision to make: Does he spend the debate sending messages to voters in Iowa, where he has focused nearly all his resources lately, or does he try to shore up his support elsewhere (particularly in the post-Iowa early states where he is really struggling)?

The presence of a moderator from Univision could give DeSantis the chance to boast of his strong performance among Hispanic voters in 2022, reviving his reelection triumph as a campaign talking point.

Nikki Haley: Go Two-for-Two

The Milwaukee debate was a godsend for the South Carolina governor, who for the first time stood out in the GOP field as something other than a potential veep pick for Trump or DeSantis. She’s now surging in early state polls: In the RCP polling averages, she’s third place in Iowa and second place in both New Hampshire and her home state. Now she needs to make sure she isn’t dismissed as a flash-in-the-pan, and the best way to do that is to continue to come across as a quick-witted, sharp-tongued candidate who manages to criticize Trump without alienating his supporters.

It would be helpful to Haley, of course, if Vivek Ramaswamy again acts as a Trump surrogate she can safely criticize. She is also well-positioned to call on the ghost of Reagan at the library debate as she continues to suggest MAGA folk are too weak on fiscal responsibility and national security.

Vivek Ramaswamy: Make a Case for Himself

The tech tyro had some breakout moments in Milwaukee but mostly came across as the absent Trump’s wingman. That’s enough to keep him aloft in national polls, where he’s virtually tied with Nikki Haley for third place in the RCP averages; he’s a relatively strong fourth in New Hampshire as well. But unless he wants to hit a ceiling whereby his main ambition would become a mid-level cabinet post in a second Trump administration, Ramaswamy needs to more clearly explain why MAGA folk should support him rather than The Master. Making himself the front-runner for the 2044 nomination contest is a questionable return on the investment of personal wealth he’s already made in this campaign.

Mike Pence: Avoid a Potentially Fatal Letdown

The former veep got some buzz from the Milwaukee debate, but that’s mainly because one of the key questions pushed the entire field to address his courageous Trump-defying conduct on January 6. That’s not likely to happen again. So Pence will be forced back into his original message of representing a merger of old-school pre-Trump conservatism and the Trump administration itself (at least prior to its final moments). Unfortunately, the hostility of serious MAGA folk toward him has all along made his emergence as a competitive candidate unlikely. If possible, he needs somehow to make himself a favorite over Tim Scott among anti-abortion hardliners and a favorite over Haley among national security pro-Ukraine hardliners. Otherwise, his candidacy may fade as the actual contest approaches.

Tim Scott: Show Up in a Big Way

Arguably, Scott was the biggest loser in Milwaukee. The candidate thought of by many as the truly dangerous rival to DeSantis barely made his presence known, and he’s been fading a bit in the polls despite a heavy investment of resources on ads, especially in Iowa. The most obvious way for him to make a mark is to repeat more forcefully his recent remarks criticizing his rivals for weakness on abortion, where he and Pence have distinguished themselves for down-the-line obedience to the forced-birth lobby, a powerful faction in GOP primary politics. He may lose some of his MSM reputation as a mild-mannered apostle of sunshine and bipartisan civility, but he needs to do something to get his mojo back. Before long he must eclipse Pence and outflank his former ally Haley if he is to survive beyond Iowa.

Chris Christie: Consolidate the Anti-Trump Vote

Asa Hutchinson’s absence isn’t generally going to be noticed a great deal, but it could benefit Chris Christie significantly, since he’ll be the only frankly anti-Trump candidate on the stage, giving him a prime opportunity to consolidate the support of the roughly one-out-of-five Republican primary voters who really don’t want the former president to win his third straight nomination. While other candidates may have strategic choices about the target of their debate remarks, Christie will likely be speaking directly to the Republicans of New Hampshire, where he’s currently running a surprising third in the RCP polling averages and may gain even more strength if some of his rivals punch themselves out (and spend all their money) in Iowa, which Christie is ignoring.

Doug Burgum: Explain Why He’s Running

To this point, the North Dakota governor has come across largely as a quirky small-town pol who has spent an awful lot of his vast wealth to game the RNC’s debate qualification requirements and get himself into two debates. Now he needs to carve out a clear identity for himself and a rationale for his candidacy. When he first announced, he positioned himself as the one candidate uninterested in waging culture war. He might want to spell that out for the edification of primary voters who feel similarly.

All seven debaters, of course, will be battling the inertia of a campaign that hasn’t had a great deal of drama, and the non-debater whose domination of the field has made the contest all but monotonous. Without some real churn, soon enough other candidates will join Francis Suarez on the list of 2024 dropouts.

What Each Republican Needs to Do in the Second Debate