What Went Down At The CNN Republican Debate

In our elections podcast we do a segment called “good use of polling or bad use of polling,” where we evaluate how candidates or the media talk about poll numbers. Suffice it to say, we were taking notes during that last Trump/Cruz exchange.

Cruz tried to bring the discussion back around to Hillary Clinton, possibly because other attacks against Trump seem to be making little impact on his swagger. This is first time Clinton’s name has been emphasized tonight. There have only been two passing mentions so far, as the candidates have mostly been talking at and over each other.

General-election polls aren’t worth much yet, but for what little they are worth, Clinton is leading both Trump and Cruz by 5 percentage points in the average poll of those respective hypothetical matchups.