Ramaswamy Seizes Spotlight as DeSantis Hangs Back in First G.O.P. Debate

Author: Editors Desk Source: N.Y Times

August 24, 2023 at 06:17

A watch party at the Nixon Library in California took in the Republican debate on Wednesday night. Credit...Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

As Republican presidential candidates traded fire at their first debate, they mostly left their party’s dominant front-runner unscathed.

One thing was clear when former President Donald J. Trump decided to skip the first debate of the 2024 Republican primary race: There would be a vacuum to fill.

But it was not Mr. Trump’s chief rival in the polls, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who emerged at the epicenter of the first Trump-free showdown on Wednesday, but instead the political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy, whose unlikely rise has revealed the remarkable degree to which the former president has remade the party.

Mr. DeSantis had stumbled heading into the debate and was widely seen as in need of a stabilizing performance. He sought it by largely avoiding the scrum and sticking closely to the core case he makes on the stump, hoping to gain incremental ground in front of a national audience.

All eight candidates mostly jostled for position among themselves, and few targeted the front-runner who is set to surrender on Thursday after his fourth criminal indictment.

Here are seven takeaways.