Below, some winners and losers (and one in-between) from the debate.
“I wish Donald Trump was up on this stage,” Haley said early in the debate. “He’s the one I’m running against.”
You could certainly be forgiven for believing otherwise.
The head-to-head debate provided both candidates with a chance to extensively drive a message. But that message almost without fail involved going after the other candidate on stage rather than the guy who could run away with the GOP nomination in less than two weeks’ time.
The two of them early on took turns offering brief lists of standard-issue attacks against Trump (attacks that haven’t worked to this point). Haley took some modest digs later in the debate by criticizing Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election and even said Trump would have to “answer for” Jan. 6. DeSantis criticized Trump for talking about terminating sections of the Constitution, then seemed to dismiss his comments as mere “word vomit.”
But they spent the better part of two hours ripping the bark off each other. They took turns accusing each other of lying about their records — Haley repeatedly plugged a web site devoted to this — ad nauseam.
Haley probably suffers the most from that. She’s the only one who appears to have a chance of beating Trump in an early state (New Hampshire on Jan. 23). But DeSantis had incentive to go after her, given she could deliver him a real blow by beating him in Iowa, and because of the setup, she seemingly had no choice but to engage.
The Republican Party has steadily been drifting away from continuing to back Ukraine in its efforts to propel Russia’s invasion. But the head-to-head format of the debate provided an unusual opportunity for Haley to advance one of the most full-throated arguments for staying in Ukraine’s corner of recent times — from a Republican or even a Democrat.
“This is about preventing war. It’s always been about preventing war,” she said. “If we support Ukraine, that’s only three and a half percent of our defense budget. Biden and no one else is telling the American people the truth about that. The Europeans have put in more than that, and they should; it’s their neighborhood.”
Haley repeatedly brought up the relatively meager cost of the investment and suggested it was staving off something even costlier — in blood and treasure — down the road.
DeSantis responded by suggesting the cost was simply too much, given our domestic problems, but Haley wasn’t backing down.
“What I will tell you is this is the lie they’re telling the American people over and over; it is so wrong to say this,” Haley said, again citing the numbers, adding: “If we support Ukraine, Israel and secure the border, that’s less than 20 percent of Biden’s green subsidies. You do not have to choose when it comes to national security. This is about keeping Americans safe.”
It’s not terribly clear this angle is helpful for Haley in a GOP primary. But it was notable that she made it, given the forum.
The Florida governor didn’t have a bad night. But he’s probably the one who needed the most out of this debate, given the trajectory of their respective campaigns. And he didn’t seem to do much to change that.
DeSantis seemed particularly uncomfortable talking about foreign policy. While his Ukraine stance is perhaps more in line with the GOP base, DeSantis hemmed and hawed about whether he would support Israel expelling Palestinians from Gaza after the war. When Haley brought up DeSantis campaigning with perhaps the most Israel-critical GOP member of Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), DeSantis had no real answer, dismissing it as “cheap, cheap garbage” and moving on. (Haley would bring it up again.)
DeSantis had his best moments when he compared his record in Florida to Haley’s record as governor of South Carolina. But his focus on Florida hasn’t borne much fruit before.
The GOP’s claim to honesty
The GOP frontrunner is already a man who uttered 30,000 false and misleading claims as president and helped spur an insurrection based on an oft-repeated lie.
And to hear the two candidates tell it, Options 2 and 3 are inveterate liars, too. They accused each other of lying around two dozen times.
“Every time he lies, Drake University, don’t turn this into a drinking game, because you will be over-served by the end of the night,” Haley said.
DeSantis added: “One good rule of thumb, if she says she’s never said something, that definitely means she said it. And then she’ll say you’re lying. … That means not only did she say it, but she’s on videotape saying it.”
The increasingly populist bent of the party was on full display, with the two candidates repeatedly going after each other for being too allied with donors.
“We don’t need another mealy-mouthed politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear,” DeSantis said, “just to try to get your vote, then to get into office and to do her donors’ bidding.”
Haley shot back that DeSantis is “only mad about the donors because the donors used to be with him, but they’re no longer with him now.”
Later, she volleyed again: “His biggest donor, that is backed by China, gave him $340,000. So don’t go and talk about donors and money.”
DeSantis also repeatedly sought to tie Haley to the corporate world, on multiple occasions citing her “pale pastels” (on a night when Haley happened to be wearing light pink). The phrase was once popularized by Ronald Reagan, who contrasted it with bold action.
“She’s bankrolled by people who want open borders,” DeSantis said, adding. “You should work with corporate CEOs. That is pale pastels.”
Probably the most significant event for Haley on Wednesday night was not the debate, but rather Christie dropping out of the race. She should be able to appeal to his (actually somewhat substantial double-digit) base of support in crucial New Hampshire, given his supporters were clearly the most anti-Trump and moderate. That could draw her closer to Trump.
As for the debate itself, she was relatively strong on foreign policy, but she stumbled over her words a fair amount, got bogged down into jousting with a candidate with less of a chance than she has, and her repeatedly plugging her website was somewhat over-done.
Perhaps the most troublesome recent issue for her was attacks from Trump and DeSantis on her having said in 2015 that we shouldn’t call undocumented immigrants “criminals.”
She insisted that didn’t mean she wanted to allow them into the country. But she seemed to suggest later that they might, indeed, be criminals.
“My mom would always say, if they don’t follow the laws to come into this country,” Haley said, “they won’t follow the laws when they are in this country.”