Republican Presidential Debate: Live Coverage

We went into the commercial break on marijuana, which isn’t a slam-dunk issue for the Republican candidates. Yes, the majority of Republicans (39 percent) were against legalizing it in an April 2015 Pew Research survey, but a sizable minority (39 percent) said it should be legal. It is an issue on which the moderate candidate could appeal to the base, though. Only 32 percent of conservative Republicans wanted to legalize it, while 65 percent didn’t.

Kasich talks about the need for skilled workers. Yesterday, I visited a manufacturing training facility run by Eastern Iowa Community Colleges here in Davenport. They’re training Iowans in skills such as welding, machining and other advanced manufacturing techniques. The demand for workers is there: At a job fair yesterday evening, companies lined up looking for skilled workers.

No questions on race or policing so far. Meanwhile, the sheriff’s deputy who flipped a black student out of her chair in South Carolina was fired today, and many other police officers in classrooms operate with little supervision.