Several presidential hopefuls had a fourth presidential debate last night at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The debate was held on a site, NewsNation, which, despite hiring a high-profile newscaster like Megyn Kelly, many people hadn't heard of before the night. Notably absent for the fourth consecutive debate was former president Donald Trump. He's not wasting time on these debates, so why should everyone else?
The Republican primary field keeps pretending that Trump isn't there. Perhaps they're hoping Trump will fall from one of the indictments in the Biden administration's unprecedented harassment of their political opposition, cynically waiting in the wings to see if their position as runner-up will get them the nomination by fiat.
Unless something horrific like that happens, most Republican voters have been in lockstep with Trump for 2024. At the beginning of this cycle, Ron DeSantis had a small window of a chance because he stood up to Disney's woke agenda. However, DeSantis squandered his opportunity by attacking Trump too hard, which turned off Republican voters. According to FiveThirtyEight, his poll numbers sunk from 45% of the vote in January to a paltry 12% recently.
With every other presidential hopeful polling at numbers even lower than DeSantis, it appears that none of the field has any real shot at defeating Trump. The former president has no incentive to attend the debates because the best that could happen is that someone gets a zinger in at him, which causes some embarrassment.
The entire debate consisted of the candidates trying to one-up and humiliate one another, making for a spectacle the Democrats must laugh at as they watch highlights this morning. Vivek Ramaswamy made the most poignant attacks of the night, telling Chris Christie to get out of the race because the former New Jersey governor has no chance of winning.
The problem with Ramaswamy's statement is that none of them can win. It only awkwardly highlighted the pointlessness of the exercise of them being there and viewers watching it.
Even totaling the poll numbers of everyone on the stage, the four candidates only achieved 31% of the Republican vote in the polls. Throughout these debates, Trump's poll numbers have only been steadily increasing to become a dominant lock on the party's leadership, polling on Dec. 7 at nearly 60% of the vote.
The only other reason to be on the stage is to try to angle for the position of vice president for Donald Trump's ticket. However, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and Ron DeSantis lashed out at Trump so hard to distinguish themselves from him that they've torpedoed their chances of getting the nod.
Only Ramaswamy stands to gain from being there, avidly supporting Trump, defending the Jan. 6 peaceful protesters, attacking neocon war hawks, and telling the truth that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen by the Democrats. If this were a tryout for VP, Ramaswamy would be the obvious choice, especially as his Ohioan background, in theory, helps shore up the swing state in the Rust Belt.
It's past time the Republican Party admits that Trump is going to be the nominee and ends the farce of a primary so that leadership can focus fire on the real target: the disastrous and corrupt Joe Biden.
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