GOP debate recap: Who won and who lost in second Republican showdown

DeSantis argued that the abortion issue wasn’t the thing that caused the GOP to underperform in the 2022 midterms.

“I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats. I think there's other reasons for that,” he said. “The former president, you know he's missing in action tonight. He's had a lot to say about that. He should be here explaining his comments.”

“I think we should hold the Democrats accountable for their extremism, supporting abortion all the way up until the moment of birth that is infanticide, and that is wrong,” he added.

In 2022, The Washington Post noted: “The GOP attacks are disingenuous at best. They imply that late-term abortions are common — and that they are routinely accepted by Democrats.

“The reality, according to federal and state data, is that abortions past the point of viability are extremely rare. When they do happen, they often involve painful, emotional and even moral decisions.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence made an awkward joke about “sleeping with a teacher for 38 years” after former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie commented on the marriage of President Joe Biden.

“As president, I will take on the teachers union and win, just like I did in New Jersey. Right now, we have a president who is sleeping with a member of the teachers union,” Mr Christie said on Wednesday night, in reference to first lady Jill Biden, a teacher. “They have an advocate inside the White House every day as an advocate for them. They need to stop defending the worst teachers and start defending our kids.”

“Chris, you mentioned the president – my wife isn’t a member of the teachers’ union, but I gotta admit I have been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years ... full disclosure,” Mr Pence said.

Mr Christie argued that “this public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers’ unions in this country”.

“Randi Weingarten and her crew ... they’re taking the worst of their members and defending them rather than advocating for our kids,” he said about the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

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Former President Donald Trump may not have been present at the second Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, but plenty of the Republican candidates took swipes at the former president as much as they attacked each other on the debate stage.

Despite the sunny disposition of the library’s namesake, the debate often devolved into a slugfest, with the candidates talking over each other with very little that could be heard. Similarly, since the debate moderators could not question Mr Trump, the candidates often attacked each other on their records.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump holds what might be an insurmountable lead in the polls as he held a rally in Detroit instead of joining the other candidates onstage.

Here are our winners and losers

Joe Biden mocked the second GOP debate with a three-word takedown of leading Republican candidate Donald Trump, who did not even bother to show up for it.

The president took to X, the social media platform formally known as Twitter, to repost a video of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis complaining that Mr Trump had again refused to debate his 2024 rivals.

“[Donald Trump] owes it to you to defend his record where they added 7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation that we have now,” Mr DeSantis said on the stage on Wednesday night. “Couldn’t agree more,” Mr Biden’s personal account wrote above the video.

Users of X were quick to applaud the president’s quick-fire response and mocking Republican complaints that an intern was posting for the president.

“He doesn’t need an intern when the GOP ‘candidates’ are making his arguments for them,” wrote one user.

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For the past few months, the Florida governor has been plagued by attacks from the former president, who has taken to calling him “DeSanctimonious.” But right out the gate, Mr DeSantis took a swipe at his former political benefactor and was able to double-barrel an attack on President Joe Biden as well.

“Donald Trump is missing an action,” he said. “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record, where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt that set the stage for the inflation that we have.”

Similarly, Mr DeSantis was able to tout his record as governor, which was the whole reason that many Republican donors fell in love with him to begin with. He earned large applause lines throughout the debate.

For the duration of his tenure in politics, the South Carolina Republican has largely been a happy warrior. That has earned him praise from donors, conservative activists and fellow senators, but to improve his station in the polls, he needed to develop some sharper elbows.

But that meant he engaged in a shouting match with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, criticising him for saying that the other candidates were “bought and paid for” and accusing him of being in league with the Chinese Communist Party and associates of Hunter Biden. That aggressive approach often came off as contrived and his message got muddled.

Their exchange in turn came off as petty and prevented a more substantive discussion that could have elevated Mr Scott. What he hoped would be a knock-out punch turned into a slugfest that knocked out a few of his teeth.

At the same time, he used a question to rebut Mr DeSantis’s curriculum in Florida, saying there were no redeeming qualities in slavery. He also discussed his experiences as a Black man who has faced discrimination while reassuring conservatives that America is not a racist country, while also criticising government assistance to the poor in the library of the president who perpetuated the idea of welfare queens in political dialogue. That earned him cheers.

Debates have often been the former New Jersey governor’s strong suit. He notoriously sank Senator Marco Rubio’s bid for the White House in 2016 during one such exchange. While his poll numbers have increased in recent months, he continues to be far behind Mr Trump. In the last debate, he regularly attacked Mr Trump’s alleged violations of the rule of law with the most tact.

But his success may have gone to his head this go around. At one point, he directly addressed Mr Trump, saying “Donald, I know you’re watching. You can’t help yourself” before mocking him for avoiding the debate. It would have been a pitch-perfect line had it not been for what came next when he said, “if you keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. They will call you Donald Duck.” The line was corny, contrived and all too canned for someone who usually delivers wise guy cracks.

But his true below-the-belt moment came when he took an attack on teachers’ unions, his longtime enemy since he was New Jersey governor, and tried to toggle the attack toward Mr Biden. But instead, he took it to the gutter by attacking Mr Biden’s wife, Dr Jill Biden, a professor at a community college, by saying, “When you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away.”