Republican candidates attempted to paint themselves as political outsiders Wednesday evening in the CNN debate after a series of recent polls revealed mounting support for candidates who have never held elected office.
“If someone has been in the system their whole life, they don’t know how broken the system is,” said Carly Fiorina, who was added to the debate stage after her poll number spiked in the weeks before the debate.
Ben Carson, who trails only Donald Trump in national polls, declined to pile on his fellow presidential contenders for their political experience.
“I don’t want to get into describing who’s a politician and who’s not a politician,” Carson said.
But the retired neurosurgeon touted his status as a Washington outsider, which has served as a major boon to his campaign.
“Typically politicians do things that are politically expedient,” Carson said. “That is not the reason that I have gotten into this thing.”
Gov. Chris Christie joked about his own position as a sitting governor after attention turned to his record of government service.
“I’m a Republican in New Jersey. I wake up every morning as an outsider,” Christie said.
“I vetoed 400 bills by a crazy liberal Democratic legislation,” he added.
Support for Trump, Carson and Fiorina, who currently sit at No. 1, 2 and 5 on the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings, has risen steadily in recent weeks as support for candidates with records of political experience, such as Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, has slowly declined.
