The guide is for candidates in a Trump-less debate
The First Fox News Debate in Wisconsin: Politics Behind the Trump-DeMumford Conjecture and a Demonstration of Pence’s Legacy
Alex Jones, Octavio Jones, Victor J. Blue, Mark makela, Anna moneymaker, Dan Keock, Michael M. Santiago, and Chip Somodevilla are photographers.
The first GOP debate is in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, and the field of candidates for the presidential election in 2024 are expected to be crowded.
This debate is taking place in Wisconsin, which is not an early nominating state, but it is one that has been very close in recent presidential elections. Republicans need to win this place if they are to reverse the fortunes of having lost seven of the last eight popular votes in presidential elections and have a chance of winning the Electoral College.
The debate is on the Fox News and Fox Business Network. Viewers can also watch it on Fox Nation streaming and digital platforms – as well as on Rumble, a video sharing platform with a primarily right-wing audience. The forum is hosted by Fox News and will be moderated by Martha MacCallum.
As of the official qualification deadline Monday evening, eight candidates had made the stage. The people are; Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Gov. Chris Christie — The former New Jersey governor is launching another bid for the Republican nomination. Christie has been expected to position himself as the conservative alternative to Trump after breaking ties with the former president following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Trump has billed himself as the perennial outsider, despite being a quasi-incumbent former president. Fox, which at one point, was a Trump bullhorn during his presidency, has vacillated in its support of him. The abandoned him and boosted the governor of Florida. The conservative audience still has a lot of warm feelings for the president, even though the campaign of Ron DeSantis has fallen by the wayside.
The first person to challenge the former president was Haley, the ambassador to the United Nations.
The former governor of Arkansas is trying to appeal to Republicans who don’t like Trump because he is standing against the chaos that he has created.
Vice President Mike Pence — Pence has a strong appeal to white Christian evangelicals, a sizable portion of the Republican base. He denounced attempts by the former president to overturn the election results. Pence specifically criticized Trump’s pressure for him to refuse to count certain Electoral College votes, a theory that Pence rejected as unconstitutional.
His name is one of the younger GOP candidates. The former tech and finance executive has been a prominent voice in conservative circles, arguing against the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement and against “woke”-ism.
Let’s get right to the obvious — former President Donald Trump, the far-and-away frontrunner for the GOP nomination again, will not be at the Republican Party’s first presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, Wis. Wednesday night.
Not eligible to take part in the debate were: Michigan businessman,Perry Johnson, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former Texas Congressman Will Hurd, and Texas pastor Ryan Binkley.
Donald J. Trump, the clear front-runner for the nomination, plans to skip the debate. He has, instead, recorded an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. They plan to post the interview on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to run concurrently with the debate, according to a person with knowledge of the planning.
He said in his post that the public knows who he is and what a successful Presidency he had. I won’t be doing the dance.
The R.N.C. and Fox News were both stung by Mr. Trump’s decision to tape an interview with Mr. Carlson and not participate in the debate.
The Biden-Harris Campaign: The First State-Specific ad campaign in Wisconsin and the Second GOP debate in Simi Valley, Calif
Trump’s counterprogramming also comes on the week he is expected to voluntarily surrender at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, where he faces 13 felony counts related to efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results.
According to the latest polling, a majority of republican voters prefer Trump to be their nominee despite the indictments. Most Americans, which includes independent voters, are not fond of Trump.
On Tuesday, the Biden-Harris campaign announced its first state-specific ad in Wisconsin as a part of a 16-week, $25 million ad campaign in battleground states. The campaign’s first investment in Hispanics and African American media is listed as the “largest and earliest media buy for a reelection campaign into constituency media ever.”
The second GOP debate will take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Sept. 27 in Simi Valley, Calif. The RNC is partnering with several businesses, including the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.
According to the AP, the qualifications to participate in this second event will be higher than first, including a higher amount of unique donors and polling numbers.
Why is Donald Trump so Disoriented? Why is he so Disorganized? Is he the only one who cares about us? Does history repeat itself now?
Why? He’s refusing to sign a pledge to support whomever the nominee will be, proving once again that Trump believes today’s Republican Party is a party of one. It’s ironic that Trump is making this decision because the pledge was largely intended to benefit him — to make sure the other candidates would be on board with another Trump run and not display any disunity within the party.
Donald Trump knows that he has leverage, and he doesn’t mind toying with the powers that are in charge. It plays into his “outsider” narrative, plus, he loves creating chaosto gain attention for himself.
Remember, he did this in 2016, when he skipped a Fox debate, because then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly was going to host. Trump didn’t like a line of questioning from Kelly previously and said she had “blood coming out of her wherever.”
Trump then went on to counterprogram with a questionable televised veterans “fundraiser.” A judge levied $2 million dollars against the now-aborted Trump Foundation. The stunt stole the show. Does history repeat itself now?
The likely answer is most will likely try to avoid Trump as a subject, except for vocal critics like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. I think Trump will come up, but how? Will it be through the Fox News host or the candidates, or will it land with the audience?
Remember, this is many of the candidates’ first chance to introduce themselves to a wider GOP audience of millions of people and the last thing they want to do is cede the spotlight again to Trump when he’s not even there. Plus, the GOP base doesn’t want the focus to be on the former president. The CBS poll found that almost 100% of the likely GOP primary voters wanted the candidates to focus on making the case for themselves instead of attacking Trump.
Just how deep is the love for Trump among the base? No joke: Republicans in the CBS poll said they trust him to tell them the truth more than their own friends and family.
One reason for the memo leak may be the sentiment among GOP voters.
Ramaswamy, 37, is a candidate who has gained in the polls recently, but he’s not likely to be the nominee, because other candidates need to go through Trump to win the nomination. The focus in this debate may not be as focused as it should be.
Five Questions Before the First GOP Primary Debate of the 2024 Election Cycle: Are Candidates Really Interested in The Economy, Inflation, or Biden’s Proposal?
The economy and inflation are polling as the top issues for potential GOP voters, but will these candidates put forward any serious proposals if they don’t like President Biden or want to fire the Federal Reserve Chairman?
It’s reminiscent of the debates in 2012 and 2016 when candidates opposed the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a “Obamacare,” but had no workable solutions to replace it.
The stage may be divided on some issues like Ukraine. On the flip side, people who are pro-Georgia and anti-Russia are in the traditional GOP camp, and people who are pro-Ukraine and anti- Russia are in the traditional GOP camp.
So what will these candidates’ messages be in a place like this? A focus on extreme, hard-right social issues won’t get them very far in a general election, and this is the first debate in front of a national audience and the first chance for not just the candidates, but the party, to show they are serious.
Primary voters for these candidates will still be GOP primary voters even if they don’t win a general election.
Can Scott, who’s spending millions on ads in Iowa, use his biographical story to connect with the audience and draw a sunny contrast with Trump without needing to talk about him?
Can Haley, the only woman on the stage, hammer home the point that she’s been making in the run up to the debate that she’s the candidate Democrats fear most – and make the audience believe it?
But that’s only if they can capitalize and so far no one has. And whatever momentum the debate “winner” might get, it’s likely to be overshadowed once again hours later, as Trump is expected to be booked Thursday in Georgia in the case against him for trying to overthrow the state’s 2020 election results.
Source: 5 questions ahead of the first GOP primary debate of the 2024 election cycle
How should the candidates approach the debate without the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination? Alice Stewart’s interview with All Things Considered’s Mary Louise Kelly
The biggest problem Republicans have in the Trump era is that they are out of step with most Americans.
Veteran Republican communications strategist Alice Stewart spoke to All Things Considered’s Mary Louise Kelly about how the candidates should approach the debate, especially without the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination.
Mary Louise Kelly: As someone who has coached Republican presidential candidates in the past, put your debate coach cap on. What’s the best advice here? Ignore Donald Trump — he’s not there? Is it possible to suck in absentia? Which would you tell me?
Donald Trump will get asked questions and the other candidates will make references to him, which makes it difficult to ignore him.
You have to punch Donald Trump on the issues that are relevant in this case. You must go after his policies if you have a disagreement with them. You may have to go after him on what he did to try and overturn the election — which, by the way, was free and fair and certainly without widespread voter fraud — and push back on him without alienating his voters.
The second most important aspect these candidates can do is to pivot as quickly as you can back to your message, your vision and your strategy for securing the nomination and taking on Joe Biden.
The candidates aren’t having to confront the frontrunner who is not there, but the frontrunner who’s being indicted in four criminal cases. It seems to be helping his polling numbers among Republican primary voters. How do you handle that?
I think is the easiest and most obvious attack on former President Trump is to show his formula is not going to win a general election.
There is no dispute about the fact that he has strong support in the Republican Party. The White House had success in regards to the economy, as well as safety and security.
The Iowa Caucus: What are the Best Candidates for the Republican Party Candidate for the Primary? “Nod to Donald Trump’s tenaciousness to insult his opponent”
Kelly: I just want to stick with this idea of punching, because what you’re saying sounds reasonable. And yet we have seen most of the GOP candidates not punching, not going on the attack in any way towards Trump.
I disagree with that ideology and mindset. But many Republicans believe that, and these candidates understand if they want to appeal to Republican voters, they have to, in some way, embrace that mindset and that thought in order to keep those people interested.
The nod is a nod to Trump’s tendency to insult his opponents. Is there a similar approach taken by the candidates this year?
Stewart said it was good to handle this with humor. But I do think a lot of these candidates, as we’ve seen over the last few days, they don’t find anything funny about the fact that the former president is thumbing his nose at not just them but Republican voters and also the Republican National Committee that sent out the invitation and asked all the candidates to sign a loyalty pledge to support the nominee and their efforts to beat Biden.
And what we’ve already seen the last several days is them pushing back on the former president for not showing up. If you don’t get ready for the debate stage by flexing your muscles, you won’t be able to get on the stage.
They need to say that on the stage if they want Donald Trump to come back to haunt them, because you have to be consistent. I bet you’ll put money on Chris Christie being the first person to throw that punch.
And here’s the thing that we often say about specifically Iowa: The purpose of these debates, and ultimately the Iowa caucus, is not to choose the party nominee — it’s to winnow the field. And what’s going to happen is a lot of these candidates will take this debate as a time to shine. And some of them, it won’t be quite as favorable. The field will be narrowed down to a top two or three. And that’s what is the best for this primary.
