Volume VI Issue I

Setting the Stage 

On September 27th, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California the 2nd Republican Primary Debate occurred. The highest polling candidates gathered on the debate stage to make their case on why they should be the Republican nominee in 2024 to face off against incumbent Democrat President Joe Biden. This debate was moderated by Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney, Fox News Channel host Dana Perino, and Univision anchor Ilia Calderón. On the debate stage, seven candidates were present, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice-President to Donald Trump Mike Pence, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and lastly North Dakota governor Doug Burgum. The frontrunner for the Republican primary race, former President Donald Trump was noticeably absent from this debate. He instead gave a speech to striking autoworkers at a factory in Detroit, Michigan. The debate opened with a discussion about the economy and the United Auto Workers Strike. The candidates unanimously rebuked ‘Bidenomics’ and gave their own solutions to our nation’s ailing economy. The debate then moved on to topics like access to childcare, immigration, education, and fossil fuel production. The candidates united behind promoting more border security and cracking down upon America’s rising crime rates. Abortion played a far more minor role in the discussion than in the previous debate. Foreign Policy was also discussed among the candidates, especially over the Ukraine war and the rising threat of China in the Pacific. In this article, I will rank the candidates from the worst presented case for the president to the best and give a brief summary of why I think they deserve their rating. 

7th Place - Chris Christie

For me, Christie’s performance in this debate comes as no surprise. His campaign is almost entirely fixated on his personal vendetta against former president Donald Trump. Throughout the debate, he took pointless jabs at the former president while not really explaining how his vision for a Republican America is superior to Trump's message. He completely failed to provide Republican voters with a vision of what an American under a Christie presidency would look like. While I think the majority of candidates on the debate stage share this problem, Christie combines this shortcoming with a uniquely anti-populist message, failing to appeal to the working-class base of voters the Republican party will need to rely on in 2024. His staunch pro-Ukraine/pro-interventionist foreign policy stance and lack of care for those negatively affected by automation are two clear examples of how out of touch he is with the Republican voter base and the American people at large. In a hypothetical matchup between him and Joe Biden, I would predict a decisive victory for President Biden. 

6th Place - Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley is an exceptionally mediocre candidate in a party with already mediocre performances. This mainly has to do with her malformed and overly simplistic view of foreign policy. Throughout the debate, she showed her support for continuing funding to Ukraine and escalating the war overall. Like many politicians in modern America, she views America’s foreign policy adversaries as one-dimensional as a cartoon villain. Ignoring the facts behind the actual strategy, motivations, and capabilities of Russia, Haley draws a false comparison between Russia and 20th-century Germany it seems. I think one anecdote from her performance demonstrates what the priorities of a Haley presidency would be like. She was asked by the moderators about how she would address the rising problem of understaffed police forces. She said the issue was very important to her before immediately switching to talk about her foreign policy against China in the Pacific. This gives weight to the idea that President Haley would probably neglect critically important domestic issues in favor of prioritizing foreign affairs in a similar fashion to her ideological contemporary, former president George W. Bush. One positive I have for her is that she went into the most detail on the issue of healthcare. In a Haley vs. Biden election race, she probably loses convincingly and underperforms Trump in 2020.   

5th Place -  Tim Scott 

Tim Scott really did not contribute much to this debate. He talked about his solid record on the childcare issue as well as general fiscal conservatism. He pledged his support behind a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, a proposal that would basically prevent Congress from spending more money than it takes in. Just like all the other candidates, he took a strong stance on border security, not really adding anything new or controversial to the conversation. I like some of his policy proposals but the truth is America will not have its greatness and prosperity restored by budget reform and tax breaks. He doesn’t focus enough on other core issues to prove to me his presidency would set the country in a better direction. If Scott were to face off against President Biden in a general election, he would lose by a solid margin.

4th Place - Mike Pence

Pence gave Republican voters more reasons to vote for Donald Trump than reasons to vote for himself. He did better than Scott in talking about illegal immigration, addressing ‘Bidenomics’, and tackling more core issues overall. As Governor of Indiana, he said he brought thousands of factory jobs to Indiana, providing a solid record in terms of manufacturing policy. He talked about how he served as vice president in an administration that established the remain in Mexico policy, a requirement that some asylum seekers arriving by the US-Mexico land border must remain in Mexico during their immigration proceedings. I still think that there was little policy substance behind many of the policy positions he took during the debate. He denounced populism and advocated for a smaller federal government, two positions that led me to believe a Pence presidency would fail at restoring America and be a waste of political resources for the conservative movement. Biden would be able to be comfortably reelected president if Pence was his Republican challenger.       

3rd Place - Ron DeSantis

Once a favorite amongst the Trumpist wing of the party, Ron DeSantis has fallen out of favor with many voters and proved he doesn't have what it takes to lead an authentic conservative movement into the future. Despite all of this, I still think he is a much better candidate than many of the Republicans currently in the race. He talked about many core issues in depth like border policy and our tenuous rivalry with China. His strongest policy proposal in this debate was his advocacy for banning the Chinese Communist Party and its collaborators from purchasing large amounts of land in the United States. He was better than most candidates on the specific issues but similar to last time was poor at communicating them in an authentic way. While I find his populist message appealing, Trump and Ramaswamy are far better at communicating that brand of conservatism. In a head-to-head race, Ron DeSantis has a narrow possibility of unseating Joe Biden; however, his defeat is more likely. 

2nd Place - Doug Burgum

Burgum’s ranking has a lot to do with the substance he put behind the issues he talked about. At the beginning of the debate, he talked extensively about how bad economic policies are the impetus behind the cause of the striking auto workers. He understood this issue better than most candidates, pointing out how economic intervention, subsidies, and free-trade agreements are killing America’s auto industry. He also had a solid stance on healthcare, blaming subsidies and economic regulation brought about by Obamacare as the culprit behind skyrocketing healthcare costs. As for his record, he presented his experience as a former Microsoft CEO as a reason why he is more qualified than the other candidates to lead a technologically progressing America. While I think that Burgum wouldn't be favored in a presidential race against Joe Biden, I think he has a more than possible chance at victory. 

1st Place - Vivek Ramaswamy

Unlike all of the other candidates on the debate stage, I can envision a future Republican party led by Vivek Ramaswamy and his ideals. Ramaswamy seemed to have the best understanding of the actual challenges and solutions facing our nation today. Setting him apart from his opponents, Ramaswamy articulates conservative populist positions in a far more in-depth manner. During the economic discussion of the debate, he criticized the Biden administration for its failed economic policies while also presenting an alternative economic vision for the country, something most Republican candidates fail at. His vision for a prosperous American economy was unleashing our untapped potential in energy production, putting people back to work by stopping Covid era welfare policies, getting rid of unconstitutional regulations, and stabilizing the U.S. dollar. He talked about reviving American exceptionalism and seemed to understand the divide in modern America between conservatives who wish to preserve the vision of the founders and certain liberals who want our country to undergo a radical transformation. Ramaswamy would face an uphill climb to the presidency but I believe he has the best shot at dethroning Biden in the 2024 election.  

Aftermath & Conclusion 

The average debate performance among the candidates in this debate was abysmal. While there were some good moments, this debate overall was hard to watch. It was the Republican party repeating its routine of saying how much it opposes Biden’s vision for our country while not creating a vision of its own. The trend among most of these candidates is that they may have some redeeming policy positions but overall fail to demonstrate to the American people how they could do better than Biden. I think this debate in my mind further stresses the necessity of Donald Trump’s involvement in conservative politics. He seems to be the only candidate who can rally working-class common Americans into voting for the Republican party. Nominating any other candidate from the debate stage would probably result in an election defeat similar to that of Mitt Romney’s defeat to Barack Obama in 2012. Polling data supports the idea that the Republican voter base is starting to realize the redundancy and waste of political effort in nominating a candidate other than Trump. According to the Morning Consult, Trump saw a boost in support after the debate while nearly every other candidate lost support. The future of the Republican party going into the 2024 election and onward will be shaped by Donald Trump, this debate failed to change that. This debate showed that a Republican party that chooses to abandon the ideals of the Trump revolution will become a party of losers.