Primary Debates Matter – Top 3 Takeaways – August 23rd, 2023
- Primary debates matter. In recent political cycles there’s been a trend. Fewer debates. The narrative has been that in a highly connected and an easily distracted world, debates just don’t matter the way they once did. And it may be true that some types of debates don’t matter as much as they used to, especially in general elections with ever fewer undecided and persuadable voters in the leadup to Election Day. That said, there is one type of debate that’s consistently proven to matter most – even in the most recent political cycles. Presidential primary debates. That’s where you tend to have the largest number of both persuadable and undecided voters. It’s also where we’ve seen early favorites in previous cycles quickly collapse and others who were little known make their presence felt for the first time on a national stage. Republican party favorites which saw their campaigns effectively collapse after poor first debate performances have included Rick Perry in the 2012 cycle and Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 cycle. At the same time, one can’t really point to a first debate performance as being the winning moment when a candidate took control of a race and never looked back (the closest would Reagan in 1979, however there was never a point in that race where he wasn’t the clear leader or others might point to Trump in 2015, however he was already the front runner in the race by the time the first debate rolled around). So perhaps the lesson learned is that primary debates do matter, but most commonly they’ve been a vetting process of sorts through a process of elimination. In other words, a candidate can’t win a nomination process in the first primary debate, however they can lose any chance they may have had in one. But of course, tonight’s Republican primary debate isn’t like any prior Republican primary debate. There’s a prohibitive front-runner whose polling advantage, at 41% nationally, is larger than any challenging candidate has ever recovered from. And that prohibitive front-runner won’t be debating tonight. These facts change the calculous, the stakes and the reality more than just a little from your typical presidential debate in an open Republican primary process. In many ways it’s appropriate that tonight’s debate will take place without the former and perhaps future President of the United States. What tonight’s debate is really about is...
- Determining a top challenger to Trump. Eight candidates will be on tonight’s debate stage. None of them have a good chance of being the next President of the United States (of all GOP candidates not named Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy currently has the best betting odds of becoming president at 8.7%). But if they’re to have any realistic chance of pulling the ultimate upset it’s because they’re able to effectively make this a two-horse race. With Trump consistently polling above 50% in individual states and in national polls, and with so many Republican voters already convicted in their support of him, the only realistic path for a Trump-challenger is to turn this into a two-horse race. Trump’s decision to not take the stage provides enough oxygen in the room for a potential standout candidate to catch lightning in a bottle and to dramatically improve their fortunes. And if there’s what’s perceived to be a poor debate performance, well if it’s previously been true that those are campaign killers, it’s doubly true this time around. There’s no margin for error for the eight taking the stage tonight because there’s only room for one of them in the race, if any of them are to seriously challenge the former president come January. Of course, if we’re being honest, most are just on that stage as a means of social climbing as is usually the case in early primary contests. So, who’s potentially legit and who’s just posing?
- There will be three on the stage who have a legitimate shot at being the top Trump challenger. And those three are Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott. Why those three? The case for DeSantis is the most obvious. Despite entering this first debate at an apparent low point in his campaign. He’s consistently been the top Trump contender in this race, he’s the most well-known, he’s been the most well financed and as a successful governor of the third largest state in the country, he has the most accomplished, conservative, political track record of any candidate in the race (if we can agree that Mike Pence’s rise to the Vice Presidency was due to riding Trump’s coattails as opposed to his own political success). Tim Scott’s inclusion as one of the top three with a chance to emerge is more data driven than polling driven. Of the existing politicians in this race only one has higher favorability ratings than Tim Scott. As voters have begun to get to know the South Carolina Senator they like him. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve decided to support him for president but what we have seen through the primary season to date is that only one other candidate in either party has produced higher favorability ratings among those who have an opinion, than Tim. His biggest challenge to date? Most still don’t know him. Fewer than 50% of voters currently know enough about Tim Scott to have an opinion of him. That represents an opportunity for him tonight if he’s able to post a strong performance. And that takes me to the third potential contender and the one that I think has the best chance of all to move the needle. Vivek Ramaswamy. Just over a month ago, on July 19th, I said this: Ramaswamy is one to watch. Six months ago, you’d never heard his name. Six months from now, he just might be the name this side of Trump to watch in Republican primary circles. Ramaswamy is one to watch and the candidate who stands to gain the most from the first GOP Presidential Debate. My opinion in the five weeks since is unchanged. Since I made that comment Ramaswamy, or Little M if you prefer, has gained the most support of any Republican candidate in the field in national and state polling. And I mentioned that Tim Scott had the second highest favorability of any candidate...it’s Ramaswamy who has the highest favorability and he’s doing it with the least name recognition of any candidate who’s polling with greater than 1% consistently. Only 44% of voters are familiar with the self-made 38-year-old entrepreneur whose current net worth is estimated at nearly $1 billion. But of the minority of voters who know him – they’re the most inclined of any candidate to like him. That positions him with the most upside of all in tonight’s debate should he be able to turn in an impressive performance