Former President Donald Trump was not on the stage at the second Republican 2024 presidential debate Wednesday night, but that does not mean his campaign wasn’t paying attention.
“Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest being dominated by President Trump,” Chris LaCivita, senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said as the debate finished.
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Trump didn’t attend the first GOP primary debate, either, saying candidates already knew where he stood on matters. But as the second debate came and went with a flurry of political fireworks, traded insults, and criticism over the event’s structure, the focus shifted from the candidates onstage to the clear front-runner in the race.
And Trump’s campaign made clear what it thinks about a possible third primary debate and his place in it.
“President Trump has a 40- or 50-point lead in the primary election and a 10-point lead over Joe Biden in the general election, and it’s clear that President Trump alone can defeat Biden,” LaCivita said. “The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), long seen as the No. 1 challenger to the former president, has been sliding for months in the polls into a deeper cavern behind Trump. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy may have seen slight increases in their numbers since the first debate, but they are nowhere near Trump in polling projections.
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As difficult as it would be on the debate stage for candidates to gain momentum over Trump, who proved adept in the 2016 election cycle at out-arguing his competitors, it still would be a chance for them to go toe-to-toe with the former president and look him in the eye as they make a point to voters.
But it is unlikely DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy, and the rest of the pack will get a chance to do so, as Trump’s campaign signaled its intentions and said just how its team feels about the “boring” product it watched on Wednesday night.
