Republican Presidential Debate: Live Coverage

Christie cited the argument by FBI Director James Comey that a so-called Ferguson effect is chilling police work, as police officers retreat from their work because of increased scrutiny of it. But Comey also said he has no concrete evidence of such an effect, and some criminologists question its existence.

Maybe I’m just itching to watch the baseball game, but it seems like all that mattered in the debate — Bush losing his exchange with Rubio, Cruz and Rubio getting their shots in at the media — happened in the first 30 minutes and that everything has been pretty dull since.

Ben, you’re right that these tax plans would benefit the wealthiest Americans. But that won’t alienate most Republican primary voters. In a Pew poll released earlier this month, just 31 percent of possible Republican primary voters said that they would be more likely to support a candidate who wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. And 34 percent said they would be less likely to support a candidate who wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. The divide does fall along ideological lines: At 39 percent, liberal Republican voters are more likely than conservative Republican voters (27 percent) to fall in the former category.