“That’s the white elephant in the room,” said Bret Breier this Wednesday, one of the two moderators first debate among Republican candidatessa primaries for the 2024 United States presidential election, referring to Donald Trump’s absence.

And the former president, who dominates the nomination race according to opinion polls, decided not to participate in the event taking place at the Fiserv Forum pavilion in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We tell you who shone, who went unnoticed, and for whom it wasn’t the best night of their career.

First time Vivek Ramaswamy, who had never run for public office before and he didn’t even vote in a presidential election between 2004 and 2020, he simply dominated the first debate of the Republican primary.

With a big grin and a quick tongue, he sometimes seems like the only candidate on the stage having fun.

No one expected that he would become one of the main contenders to be named the Republican presidential nominee. Moreover, they won’t put him right next to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is the center of attention because, in the absence of Donald Trump, he is the person who has the most voting intentions in the election.

But she persisted, fending off former Vice President Mike Pence’s attacks on her youth and lack of experience and clashing with Trump’s former UN ambassador and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley over her call to cut US military aid to Ukraine.

also out to defend Trump when, as expected, another candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, harshly criticized the former president and called for “stop normalizing atypical attitudes in the US presidency.”

Ramaswamy said that with his intervention, Christie was auditioning for the left-wing news channel MSNBC, while Haley, with her stance on continuing to support Ukraine militarily, was seeking a position on the defense contractor’s board.

“I was the only person on stage who hadn’t been paid or wasn’t sold out.”he snapped when the debate turned to climate change, drawing the ire of his rivals.

Ramaswamy repeatedly presented himself as an outsider to a group of career politicians. “I’m not a politician, I’m a businessman,” he said at the start and throughout the debate he made it clear that he belongs to another generation.

For this reason, they have nicknamed it “Trump a thousand years”.

Many of his positions – calling for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, using military force to secure its southern border, and banning American companies from doing business with China – are outside the mainstream, even of those same Republicans.

But as Trump pointed out in 2016, even the most outlandish and impractical proposals often turn heads.

He may not have enough political clout to challenge Trump for the nomination, and he may not want to, but his participation in Wednesday’s debate made it clear that he will be a presidential candidate. a factor to consider in the career months that lie ahead.

Mike Pence, a veteran politician who He has been a member of the DPR, governor, and vice presidentthere are still strings left.

Loathed by Trump’s followers and under the disbelieving gaze of the former president’s critics, his presidential campaign has faltered somewhat.

But his experience on stage worked in his favor on Wednesday night.

He switched to attack mode early on, on his first opportunity to comment, pointing out Ramaswamy’s lack of experience and saying: ““This is not the time for someone who is an apprentice.”.

He made a passionate, faith-based call to limit abortion nationwide.

That argument may not hold water ahead of next year’s election.

But now it may help him harness the votes of evangelical Republicans who could tip the balance in states like Iowa and South Carolina, which have a big influence in determining who will be the party’s nominee.

In the second part of the debate, when the candidates discussed Trump and the accusations against him, it was Pence who called the shots.

“When the President asked me to put him above the Constitution, I put the Constitution first, and I always will.“, said.

Some of his rivals praised him for the decision, acknowledging that he did the right thing by refusing to overturn the 2020 election results at Trump’s behest.

His campaign continues to face fundamental challenges, but at least Wednesday night showed why many conservative Republicans once considered him to be president.

The former US ambassador to the UN tends to surprise those who underestimate him.

He never lost a race for office, even when facing a more established Republican candidate for governor of South Carolina.

This Wednesday night stands out the first to criticize not only Trump, but the Republican Party as a whole.

“Republicans did this to you too,” he said when talking about the size of the US budget deficit. “They have to stop spending, stop borrowing.”

As the debate turned to Trump, Haley called the former president “the most underappreciated politician in the United States” and warned that Republicans would suffer for it at the next general election.

He also showed fighting spirit.

He had a heated exchange with Ramaswamy when he stated that, if he became president, he would no longer support Ukraine militarily.

And he clashed with Pence when the issue at hand was abortion, and confirmed that the former vice president’s call for a nationwide abortion ban was unrealistic and politically damaging.

Even if he doesn’t win the Republican nomination this time, his performance in the debate could position the 51-year-old well for future presidential races, especially in election years that aren’t dominated by former presidential candidates.

Tim Scott and Chris Christie

Former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christiedid exactly what many people expected it to do.

He criticized Trump, made insinuations at Ramaswamy and was generally aggressive.

For these two interventions he was booed, just as he had been when he was introduced.

His most clever phrase is probably “we are fed up of new politicians that sound like ChatGPT”which he released in connection with Ramaswamy.

However, this did not help him win over the audience who followed the debate live.

About Tim Scott, the only black senator in the Republican Party, his good demeanor kept him going in between the hottest moments from the debate.

This won’t help him win over voters, but it could boost his credibility if he wants to be whoever Trump chooses as vice president.

At the start of the year, it seemed that the Republican presidential nomination would be a contest between two men: Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump.

Since then, Florida governor has lost in the polls and its rivals have closed the gap.

And if they haven’t already, they probably have after the debate.

It wasn’t a bad performance from DeSantis. He had his moments, especially when he discussed his military service record and called for more aggressive government policies to address the opioid crisis.

However, he remained on the sidelines at all key moments from the debate.

Ramaswamy outplayed him on several occasions.

Other candidates, such as Pence and Haley, elbowed him on issues such as abortion or US military aid to Ukraine.

It doesn’t even seem solid when the discussion turns to the topic of legal proceedings against Trump.

He didn’t have the performance he needed. The man thinks the future of the Republican Party is not the main contender in the debate.

Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson was the final candidate to qualify for the debate in Milwaukee.

Meanwhile, North Dakota Governor Doug Bergum fueled the debate with a trick: offering enough people a $20 gift card if they donated $1 to his campaign.

both candidates They desperately need to prove they deserve to be there, onstage.

But Hutchinson’s criticism of Trump pales in comparison to Christie’s more aggressive criticism.

And small-state conservatism in Burgum has never stood out.

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