Believe it or not, there is another GOP presidential primary debate on Wednesday night. This one is at the University of Alabama. Are people still watching these things? (I mean people other than political junkies like me?)
The field is down to four: Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Once again, Donald Trump will not attend.
Here is Dylan Wells at The Washington Post:
To participate in the debate, candidates had to meet the Republican National Committeeās debate requirements of at least 80,000 unique donors, with at least 200 unique donors per state or territory in at least 20 states or territories, and garnering at least 6 percent in twoapproved national polls or 6 percent in one national poll and 6 percent in polls of two different early-primary states.
Haley hasĀ emerged as the most viable alternativeĀ candidate to Trump in recent weeks, surpassing or tying DeSantis for second place in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Last week, she won theĀ endorsementĀ of the political network led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch. DeSantisās campaign and the super PAC supporting him haveĀ faced recent drama, with the PAC that has overseen much of his presidential operation firing its CEO less than two weeks after the previous chief executive resigned.
Read the rest here.
It is time for Christie and Ramaswamy to drop out. Sadly, I do not think their egos will allow it. But if this does happen, Christie’s votes will go to Haley and Ramaswamy’s votes will probably go to Trump and DeSantis. I don’t really have a horse in this race, but it would nice to see a competitive GOP primary season.