WASHINGTON — Voters across the United States got their first live prime-time look Wednesday at the bulk of the Republican field for U.S. president, absent the front-runner whose own hunger for power poses the only real threat to his ambitions.
Donald Trump, secure in his towering poll numbers, was nowhere near the maiden GOP debate of the 2024 election season, opting instead for a taped interview with former Fox host Tucker Carlson that streamed online at the same time.
"I've taken a pass, as you might have noticed," Trump said.
His absence garnered no mention in the debate's first segment, which instead featured Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy doing their best to channel the former president's anti-establishment energy.
"I stand on the side of American revolution," declared Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur and political rookie whose third-place polling status placed him next to DeSantis at centre stage.
"Do you want a super-PAC puppet, or do you want a patriot who speaks the truth? Do you want incremental reform, which is what you're hearing about, or do you want revolution?"
DeSantis, the Florida governor who rose to national prominence by pushing back against lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, played that card early.
"It was a mistake. It should have never happened," DeSantis said of the emergency shutdown that shuttered schools and businesses across the country in 2020.
"In Florida, we led the country out of lockdown. We kept our state free and open. And I can tell you this: as your president, I will never let the deep state bureaucrats lock you down."
For good measure, DeSantis even name-checked Anthony Fauci, the former White House health adviser whose efforts to prevent the spread of COVID made him a popular target among Trump-friendly GOP voters.
"You don't take somebody like Fauci and coddle him. You bring Fauci in, you sit him down and you say, 'Anthony, you are fired.'"
It was a brazen, if ham-fisted, example of the night's goal for several of the candidates: appeal to Trump's deep, loyal base of supporters without alienating them by speaking ill of the former commander-in-chief.
Indeed, Trump's name didn't even come up for the first 20 minutes before former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley accused him of adding $8 trillion to the national debt during his time in office.
But the second hour of the debate began with the field confronting what moderator Bret Baier called "the elephant not in the room." Cue Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has embraced the role of Trump-basher.
"Here's the bottom line: someone's got to stop normalizing this conduct," Christie said. "Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States."
A chorus of booing arose from the crowd, but Christie was prepared: "This is the great thing about this country. Booing is allowed, but it doesn't change the truth."
That prompted a stinging rebuke from Ramaswamy, who described Trump as "the best president of the 21st century" and vowed to pardon him once elected.
"Your claim that Donald Trump is motivated by vengeance and grievance would be a lot more suitable if your entire campaign were not based on vengeance and grievance," he told Christie amid lusty cheers from the crowd.
"If people at home want to see a bunch of people blindly bashing Donald Trump without an iota of vision for this country, they could just change the channel to MSNBC right now."
Asked whether they would support Trump should he be convicted and still become the nominee, all but Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson raised their hand.
"Trump is the most disliked politician in America," Haley said. "We can't win a general election that way."
Mike Pence, the former vice-president whose perceived disloyalty to Trump during the Capitol Hill riots of Jan. 6, 2021, have made him a marked man in the MAGA crowd, found several allies onstage when talk turned to his refusal to do his boss's bidding and delay certifying Joe Biden's election win.
"(Trump) asked me to put him over the constitution, and I chose the constitution," Pence said. "I had no right to overturn the election, and Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat (Democrats) in 2024."
Under normal, pre-Trump circumstances, the contest would be all but over. A CBS News poll out this week showed the former president with a commanding 62 per cent lead among likely Republican primary voters.
"As long as Trump commands a solid, committed base, he's in control," said Mark Rozell, a public policy professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Va.
Through four separate criminal indictments — Trump plans to surrender in Georgia on Wednesday, quashing any post-debate coverage of his rivals — that base has shown no signs of abandoning him, Rozell said.
"Party leaders and donors want nothing more than for Trump to plead a deal and step aside from running," he said.
"Given Trump's intense base support, they are not saying out loud that they would like the party to move on. Ultimately, they fear he is not a strong general election candidate and will sink Republicans down-ticket."
For the moment, at least, the polls suggest otherwise. But Trump's escalating legal challenges also help explain why DeSantis is still in the race.
"Under other circumstances — with donors abandoning him and his polls lagging — DeSantis would depart early and live to fight another day," Rozell said.
"Given that he remains second choice still for many, he has an incentive to stay in the race in case Trump exits."
If anyone notched a win Wednesday, it was Ramaswamy, who was making his prime-time debut after steadily improving in the polls in recent months.
Ramaswamy "wants to get as much attention as possible," said Steven D. Cohen, a communications professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore, Md.
"I think getting attacked by DeSantis or other candidates, for him, is a great thing, because it only increases his stature."
A handful of other candidates, including Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former Texas congressman Will Hurd, conservative radio personality Larry Elder and Michigan executive Perry Johnson, did not qualify to participate.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 23, 2023.
James McCarten, The Canadian Press