Live Coverage Of The First Republican Debate

Earlier I noted that the immigration debate often seems stuck in the 1990s. Donald Trump’s comments are a perfect example: He’s talking about building a wall to keep out undocumented immigrants from Mexico, at a time when illegal immigration has slowed and the U.S. is now getting more new immigrants from Asia than from Latin America. Jeb Bush, meanwhile, makes a point that’s often lost: Many undocumented immigrants are visa-overstayers, meaning they entered the country legally but didn’t leave when they were meant to. A 2006 Pew report estimated that 40 percent of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. initially came here legally.

John Kasich’s biggest problem isn’t his record but how he talks about it. We already saw Megyn Kelly ask Kasich about expanding Medicaid in Ohio and Kasich defending it. As I wrote about previously, Kasich is seen as far more moderate than even Jeb Bush, even though his overall record is about equally conservative. Check out this data from YouGov on how voters view the candidates with 0 being the most liberal and 100 being the most conservative.

At the end of the opening round of questions, there have already been more interruptions (Paul of Trump, Trump of moderator) than in the entire JV debate. No assault or battery yet, but after that question on independent runs, you know they’re all thinking about it.