What Went Down At The ABC Republican Debate

The absence of military veterans on the Republican stage tonight, with none remaining in the Democratic race, is quite a sea change. Between 1948 and 2008, at least one veteran was among the major-party nominees in every single election. (Although we should note that low-polling GOP candidate Jim Gilmore is a veteran, as was Democrat Jim Webb, who has since dropped his presidential bid.)

One thing to keep in mind: there are just three more full days of campaigning remaining in New Hampshire, but that’s still plenty of time for the results to change substantially from where the polls have them right now. In the past, for example, there’s been a huge last-minute surge for Gary Hart (1984), a significant rebound for Howard Dean (in 2004, although it was not enough for him to win New Hampshire) and a major upset in 2008, when Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama despite trailing him in all the final polls.

… even if we have trouble defining what conservatism means. By the three ideological measures on this chart, Cruz is the most conservative, on average, and Christie is the least. Perhaps relatedly, Cruz won the Iowa caucuses this week and is polling well elsewhere. Christie is barely on the radar with GOP primary voters. Among the candidates still in the race, Rubio is the second-most conservative. Kasich and Bush are both between the Republican average for the 96th Congress (1979-1980) and the Republican average in the 113th Congress, whereas Rubio and Cruz are both to the right of the later average. In other words, there’s a time dimension to this as well. Kasich and Bush are more representative of the Reagan and George W. Bush era, while Cruz and Rubio entered national politics with the Tea Party movement. So what we’re seeing there is not just that the stronger candidates are further to the right – we’re also observing the evolution of the party.