What may be the final debate of the Republican primary cycle — indeed, possibly the final debate of the 2024 election cycle — generated more heat than light on Wednesday night. Voters were presented with a Rorschach test. Each candidate hit their notes and met expectations, so voters who watched the debate probably saw exactly what they wanted to see — whatever that meant to them.
Voters who like Ron DeSantis saw him at his best. For the first time in this cycle, DeSantis ran like he was behind in the polls — a prudent calculation, because he very much is. DeSantis didn’t sit back, absorb blows, and stick to his message. Instead, he picked fights, with Nikki Haley in particular, some of which he won. He hammered his closest competitor on transgenderism and the need to prohibit in law access to surgical or pharmaceutical remedies for gender dysphoria in minors. He backed a muscular foreign policy, exhibited his encyclopedic knowledge of policy, and promised convincingly to be a reformer rather than a caretaker in the Oval Office. It was DeSantis’s best primary-debate performance by far.
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