Live Coverage Of The First Republican Debate

Kasich may be smart to try to play a middle ground on gay marriage. While most Republicans are against same-sex marriage, my previous study indicated same-sex marriage was probably the second biggest reason why independents chose not to identify with the Republican Party. It’s a policy on which Republicans disagree with most Americans.

Marco Rubio just disputed Megyn Kelly’s assertion that he favors abortion rights in the case of rape. Most Republicans, however, say in poll after poll that abortion should be legal if a rape has been committed. In the 2014 General Social Survey, for example, 68 percent of Republicans said as much.

I asked the FiveThirtyEight staff who they thought was winning the debate, and there were mostly crickets in the room, with tentative votes for Kasich and Rand Paul. Google search traffic seems to be pretty equivocal on that question too. But it’s likely that the conventional wisdom will settle around one or two names between now and 11:30 p.m. or so; the media won’t like the narrative that the debate was a draw.