The Washington Post paired with FiveThrityEight and Ipsos pollsters to take the temperature of the Republican primary electorate following the first (Trump-less) GOP presidential debate. “And they thought Florida Gov Ron DeSantis came out on top Wednesday night,” the Post reported, “with 29 percent of Republican voters who watched the debate saying he performed best.”
He was nearly matched by former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy, with 26 percent saying he performed best. The findings may be surprising because DeSantis generally stayed above the fray in a raucous debate, though Ramaswamy received and delivered lots of barbs.
These results are only “surprising” if you disregard the prevailing political dynamics in this race ahead of the debate and instead evaluate it with a theater critic’s sensibilities. Ron DeSantis is still Donald Trump’s most viable Republican opponent. He has the strongest organization, the most cash on hand, and some of the highest favorability ratings in the Republican field. What’s more, the Florida governor somehow managed to float through the debate without any of his opponents even attempting to target him for criticism, much less land any blows.
Only if you’ve internalized the idea that Ramaswamy’s growing name recognition among GOP voters constitutes a surge in his support — a media narrative retailed in the doldrums of August — would you be surprised by this development.
More interestingly, although Ramaswamy turned in a performance that all but erased his name-recognition problem, this poll indicates that the effect of his performance was to drive his unfavorable ratings up 19 points while his favorability rating among GOP voters increased by 10 points. Overall, however, Nikki Haley seems to have squeezed the most value out of her debate performance. The number of Republican debate watchers who said they are considering supporting her candidacy increased from 29 to 46 percent.
These are preliminary findings, and other pollsters might produce divergent results in the coming days. These figures do, however, suggest that we don’t have to throw out everything we know about politics just yet. At least, not when Trump isn’t on stage.