The 11th Republican presidential primary debate is in the books. Let’s take a look at who got the most speaking time.
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For the third debate in a row, Donald Trump got the most speaking time at a Republican debate. Trump spoke for nearly 30 minutes, 9 more minutes any other candidate, just as in the last debate. Cruz came in second, speaking for 19.5 minutes.
In all of the the previous five debates, Ben Carson spoke the least. Carson dropped out of this debate despite being invited. Instead, Marco Rubio spoke least at this debate, for about 12 minutes and 15 seconds. Trump spoke well over twice as long as Rubio.
With four people in the debate, Trump spoke for more than one-third of the time, well more than his fair share. Cruz had about one-fourth, while Rubio and Kasich were under one-fifth.
Trump was the only candidate who spoke for more than his fair share of speaking time, if you believe each candidate should have had equal time.
Even if you believe candidates should get speaking time proportional to their share in the polls, Trump got more than his fair share. He averages 35.6 percent in national polls but got 37.3 percent of Thursday’s speaking time. Cruz and Kasich also got more speaking time than their portion of support in national polls (partially because national polls still include Carson). Remarkably, by my calculations Rubio got a portion of speaking time exactly equal to his average support in national polls.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
