Republican Presidential Debate: Live Coverage

I agree with the many people saying Ted Cruz is having a great debate, but I still don’t think he’s in the league of “the one to beat.” First of all, he was born in Canada. <Ducking.> Seriously, he’s alienated plenty of the Republican establishment, which will work against who helps him in their localities. On the other hand, he has a strong ground game in unusual stomping grounds like the territory of Guam, which does matter in the process.

We’ve been tracking how many times the candidates have attacked each other. So far, this has been a fairly cordial debate (possibly because the moderators have been receiving a lot of the candidates’ ire). Last debate, the GOP candidate attacked the most was Trump at 21 mentions. So far in this debate, Trump is still in the lead for the GOP but with only two attacks, while Hillary Clinton has been attacked seven times.

The Tax Foundation actually finds that under Jeb Bush’s tax plan, the biggest tax cuts will go to the wealthiest Americans. Ditto for Donald Trump’s plan. That isn’t just true in dollar terms but also in percentage terms. Their plans would eliminate taxes like the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax that primarily affect the wealthy. CORRECTION (Oct. 28, 10:40 p.m.): A Tax Foundation analysis concluded that under Marco Rubio’s tax plan, the biggest cuts (in percentage terms) would go to the poor, followed by the wealthy. (The middle class would get the smallest cut.) An earlier version of this post said the largest cuts would go to the rich.