What Went Down In The Second GOP Debate

It can be dangerous to predict how the polls will move in response to debates. On the one hand, journalists and political pundits don’t have so much in common with the Republican voters who are watching the debates at home. On the other hand, the post-debate narratives and “spin” sometimes matter more than what happened on the debate stage itself. But for what it’s worth, a lot of media types in my Twitter feed seem to think Carly Fiorina did really well, and my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight agree. I asked our team to grade each candidate from A to F on the basis of how much they helped their chances of winning the nomination or otherwise running a “successful” campaign. The grades were sent to me individually so we didn’t have the opportunity to crib off one another (not that we’re immune from other types of groupthink). Twelve people responded, including me.

CANDIDATE	AVERAGE GRADE	HIGH GRADE	LOW GRADE
Fiorina	A	A+	A-
Rubio	B	A	C
Bush	B	A-	C
Christie	B-	B+	D
Carson	B-	B+	D
Cruz	C+	B	D
Trump	C+	B+	D
Kasich	C+	B+	D
Paul	C+	B	C-
Walker	C+	B-	D
Huckabee	C	B	D

Everyone gave Fiorina an A-, A or A+. No one else was really that close, with Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush averaging a B. Donald Trump averaged a C+ in our straw poll, although with a wide range of responses including one “WTF.” If Fiorina gets a further boost in the polls, it will be interesting to see where her support comes from. Fiorina doesn’t have traditional credentials for a nominee, having never held elected office before (she lost to the Democrat Barbara Boxer in the California senate race in 2010). But Fiorina’s policy positions are fairly conventional, mirroring those of the Republican establishment, and her ability to claim “outsider” status could be a boon given the mood of the GOP electorate. So check to see how Fiorina does in the polls — but also whether she picks up any endorsements or other signs of support from the Republican establishment.

Donald Trump dominated the debate, and he had the help of the moderators to do it. They asked him more questions than any other candidate (and only one fewer than they asked Huckabee, Kasich, Rubio and Walker combined). Bush was the second-most-frequent speaker, relying on the favor of the moderators and the other candidates’ propensity to attack him (and thus give him the chance to reply). Fiorina pushed her way into the top three with her frequent interruptions. This analysis excludes the opening statements and the final, lighthearted questions posed to everyone.

Here’s what the moderators thought was most important for the candidates to cover. We tallied all the topics that got at least two questions (excluding the silly session at the end).

Trump and Carson both said we give too many vaccines, too close together. The Institute of Medicine took a look at whether the immunization schedule is safe and found that there was no evidence of safety concerns. But it went further, saying “rather than exposing children to harm, following the complete childhood immunization schedule is strongly associated with reducing vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Scott Walker just said that Ronald Reagan trailed just before the 1980 election. That’s not true. As this Monkey Cage blog post details, Reagan led consistently over Jimmy Carter in an aggregate of polls from June 1980 through the election.

We’re down to the final minutes of the debate, and finally someone is talking about the economy. Jeb Bush correctly notes that poverty is up under Obama and incomes and workforce participation are down. Whether his policies will reverse those trends is another question. Bush has pledged to deliver 4 percent economic growth, something most experts believe will be difficult at a time when baby boomers are retiring. Still, it’s good to hear someone talking about serious economic problems in this debate — even if it’s likely come long after most people have tuned out.

Huckabee asked: “Why doesn’t this country focus on cures rather than treatment?” Nixon declared a war on cancer in 1971. This year the National Institutes of Health will spend $5.4 billion on cancer research. We still have no cure.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/644344318849908736

Trump’s brain, like all of ours, is primed to reach false conclusions.

Yes, Trump should stop saying vaccines cause autism. There is no link between vaccines and autism.

Yeah, if I’m Clinton, I’m happy I don’t have to stand on a stage for three hours.

If I’m Hillary Clinton, Micah, then I want Donald Trump to be a factor in the Republican race for as long as possible, and I don’t think Trump has had a particularly good night. But we’ll see — it’s not very easy to predict how the polls move in immediate response to a debate. The one thing I feel fairly confident about is that Fiorina is going to get some kind of bounce.

Nate and Harry, If you’re Hillary Clinton watching this debate (though apparently Clinton isn’t watching), are you happy with how it’s going?

We had a brief respite from Trump, but he’s still gotten at least twice as many questions from the moderator (12) as anyone but Bush (nine). Walker and Huckabee bring up the rear with three each.

Chris Christie just spoke about his Social Security plan, which includes eliminating benefits for those making more than $200,000 a year. As I noted when Christie first proposed overhauling Social Security, polling indicates that Christie will not benefit electorally from his stance.

The data on Christie’s claim that marijuana is a gateway drug: 111 million Americans have tried marijuana in their lifetime; 4.6 million people have tried heroin. Marijuana “does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse,” according to the federal Institute of Medicine.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/644340175003348992

Ending mass incarceration was once a predominantly liberal issue, but it’s increasingly drawing bipartisan support. Conservatives worry about the high cost of locking up millions; libertarians worry about state overreach; and progressives worry about the impact on minority communities. One thing that was interesting about Rand Paul’s answer, though, was that he justified his position on explicitly social justice grounds. The data backs him up: The people locked up for drug crimes are disproportionately poor men of color. As my colleague Oliver Roeder has written, however, ending mass incarceration will require far more than releasing nonviolent drug offenders.

If you believe the polls, most Republicans haven’t lit up a joint. According to a recent Gallup survey, only 31 percent of Republicans say they’ve done the doobie. Moreover, only 36 percent of Republicans in an April 2015 Fox News poll were in favor of legalizing marijuana.

https://twitter.com/slday29/status/644334944563630080

Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush are going at each other over the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts. As I pointed out during the first debate, no Republican senator voted against the Roberts nomination, and the vast majority of Republicans nationwide were for it.

There’s an advantage in being attacked. A quarter of candidates’ chances to speak have come when they’re mentioned by opponents and get a right of reply. Trump and Bush have gotten to do this the most. Bush’s opponents have given him half of his chances to speak.

Cruz

If you’re fed up with Washington and looking for somebody to stand up to career politicians, I’m the only one on this stage that’s done that over and over again. I am the only candidate on this stage who has never supported amnesty.

Christie

I’m the only person on the stage who spent seven years as the United States attorney after Sept. 11.

Kasich

I am the only person on this stage and one of the few people in this country that led the effort as the chief architect of the last time we balanced the federal budget.

Walker

I’m the only one on the stage that has a plan introduced to repeal Obamacare on day one.

Trump

I’m the only person up here that fought against going into Iraq.

Trump is going after George W. Bush; that’s dangerous if not executed correctly. According to a May 2015 CNN/ORC survey, 89 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of him.

Nearly half of the times Fiorina has spoken, it’s been because she has interrupted others.

I think Walker has been better than in the previous debate. The problem is that Rubio and Bush have each been sharper and had more memorable lines than Walker, and they’re the ones who Walker’s competing against most directly for the establishment’s support.

It’s September 2015. The Iowa caucus is scheduled for Feb. 1, 2016. Unless Walker is running out of money, it’s not that dire.

A lot of people were talking about this debate as do or die for Scott Walker, and he hasn’t exactly stood out so far — are things really that dire for the Walker campaign?

Ben Carson was incorrectly written off by the media as having a poor performance during the first Republican debate. In fact, however, Google search traffic suggested that a lot of people were looking him up during the debate. It turned out that he was rewarded with a bounce in the polls. But this time around? Carson’s well behind in Google search traffic versus Trump, Fiorina and Jeb Bush. And — relatedly — he hasn’t had that much airtime, or made much of what he’s had. Voters can appreciate Carson’s quiet demeanor. But it’s one thing to be low-key, and another to be low-energy.

I should note again that most Republicans are opposed to raising the national minimum wage. The majority of Republicans (56 percent) are against raising it, according to an August 2015 Marist survey. That’s very different from the majority of Americans (68 percent), who are in favor of raising it.

Before tonight’s debate began (we were all younger then), I wondered whether the Republican candidates would seize on stagnant incomes to criticize President Obama’s stewardship of the economy. For the first 90 minutes, they had few opportunities. Now they’ve been given one, and they’re mostly choosing to focus on taxes and Carly Fiorina’s business record. The one exception is Chris Christie. Right out of the gate tonight, he spoke about Americans’ general sense of stagnation. And as soon as the subject turned to the economy, he addressed the lack of income growth. I’m surprised no one else is jumping on the issue.

The Trump bankruptcy saga is confusing because he repeatedly claims, accurately, that he never filed for bankruptcy. But he means only personal bankruptcy. He is quite familiar with corporate bankruptcy, because four Trump properties in Atlantic City went through Chapter 11. Forbes tells the story in detail here.

It’s always difficult to know how Americans will feel about a changing of our complex tax structure after a vigorous debate. In theory, though, most Republicans (59 percent) were in favor of a flat tax in a May 2015 YouGov survey. Most Americans (61 percent), however, are either opposed to or hold no opinion of the flat tax.

Trump has had more questions directed at him (nine) than Carson, Rubio, Huckabee and Walker combined (two for everyone but Walker, who has one).

Trump is right about one thing: Fiorina doubled the size of Hewlett-Packard mostly by buying Compaq, not by attracting more customers. That merger is now widely seen as a failure. Perhaps the definitive account of Fiorina’s time as CEO of HP — written while she was still there — is Carol Loomis’s 2005 profile in Fortune.

An hour and a half in (and yet not halfway), we’ve got our first question on the economy. It goes to Trump, just as nearly a quarter of questions have (9 of 39 and counting).

A quarter of all the talking is now coming via interruptions, and the moderators are still sticking with “please … please” to try to take back the mic.

Trump says we speak English in the U.S., but we also speak Spanish: 35.8 million people speak Spanish, including 21 million U.S.-born Latinos who speak at least some Spanish at home, according to the Pew Research Center.

If you feel like you haven’t seen Huckabee or Walker in a while, that’s because they’re the two candidates to get only one question directed at them so far.

Based on tonight’s debate, we’re likely to hear a lot about whether the ability to speak English should be required to become an American citizen. According to a June 2015 Public Religion Research Institute survey, the vast majority (89 percent) of Americans believe that speaking English is an important part of being an American. That’s a far greater percentage than said the same about believing in God (69 percent), being born in America (58 percent) or being Christian (53 percent).

I wrote earlier about the challenge of sustaining momentum when you’re only getting to speak once every 20 minutes or so. Some of the candidates seem to be overcompensating by resorting to stunts or gimmicks, like a motivational speaker who’s trying to keep the interest of a bored audience. Christie’s had a little bit of that, for instance — it seemed overly theatrical when, in his opening statement, he asked the camera to turn to the audience. Huckabee and Cruz can both be a little gimmicky. One thing that helps Fiorina, by contrast, is that she’s using her time wisely, being forceful and direct without resorting to stunts.

CNN’s Jake Tapper’s question to Trump was a smart one: How would you deport 11 million people? Trump gave a non-answer: Build a wall. The problem with that answer is that the undocumented population has been basically flat in recent years and is down from its mid-2000s peak. The number of undocumented immigrants is still near an all-time high, but it isn’t growing much. Moreover, as many as half of undocumented immigrants didn’t cross the border illegally; they came legally and overstayed their visas.

I’m not sure we should be comparing Fiorina to Gingrich in terms of a potential surge, though. She’s an odd case in that while she doesn’t have traditional credentials — never been elected to public office — her policy positions are straight up the Republican fairway and pretty establishment-friendly.

Jeb Bush says if Planned Parenthood is defunded, there are thousands of health clinics that can provide women’s health services. That’s not entirely true according to the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated on Tuesday that 5 percent to 25 percent of Planned Parenthood’s patients, 130,000 to 650,000 women, would face reduced access to care if the organization’s funding were cut.

Donald Trump wants to build a wall along the Mexican border. Most Republicans are in favor of this. According to a poll out from Monmouth this month, 73 percent of Republicans want the wall to be built. Less than half of Americans (48 percent) are in favor of the wall, however.

Sure. Of course Fiorina could surge again. It doesn’t take that much to have a surge. If you’re polling at 10 percent, you’re in third place, and at 20 percent, you’re in second place. At 25 percent, you might be in first place, if you can take some of that support from Trump. Fiorina is having an excellent debate, she has pretty good favorable ratings and she has room to grow.

Yes. Newt Gingrich did in the 2012 cycle.