What Went Down At The CNN Republican Debate

A report last week showed the rewards and risks that other candidates face when attacking Trump. The College of William and Mary and FairVote released results from an unusual poll among Republicans and independents conducted both just before and after the Iowa caucuses, asking respondents to rank all 11 candidates who remained back in more innocent times when nearly a dozen people thought they could be the Republican nominee. The poll found that Trump’s lead over Rubio narrows to 8 percentage points when all other candidates drop away, and that Cruz overtakes Trump in a one-on-one. That’s the upside of attacking him: Both Rubio and Cruz likely will look good to many voters when on the attack. (Those numbers might look better for Rubio now and worse for Cruz, based on more traditional polling numbers.) But even back when the race had 11 candidates, Trump was the last choice of more than one in five voters. That suggests that plenty of voters already strongly opposed Trump back when no one was attacking him, so they may not be that many people who can be moved by the attacks.

This is the first debate where I can remember Trump being pushed this far back on his heels. Rubio and Cruz, who I’m pretty sure did have a little pow-wow before this, are really going after him hard on the idea that he doesn’t have a solid, workable plan for any of the proposals that he’s offered up during his campaign. The two senators are really just trying to stanch the bleeding of their electoral support. One thing we do know is that once you’ve made up your mind to vote for Donald Trump, you’re likely going to stick with him, so Cruz and Rubio are really aiming their performances tonight at those Super Tuesday undecided voters, who, seeing Trump win the last few contests, might figure that he’s actually a viable candidate. They’re hoping those people think differently after tonight.

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.