The ninth Republican presidential primary debate is in the books. Let’s take a look at who got the most speaking time:
For the first time since September, Donald Trump go the most speaking time at a Republican debate. Trump spoke for 16.5 minutes, nearly three more than Ted Cruz, who had the second-most time. Marco Rubio spoke longest at the previous two debates.
With six people in the debate, Trump spoke for nearly one-fourth of the time. Cruz had one-fifth. Behind those two were Jeb Bush, Rubio and John Kasich, who each had between 10 and 11 minutes of speaking time. Ben Carson spoke for the least amount of time in the fourth straight debate. He spoke for 8.6 minutes, just more than half of the time Trump spoke.
Trump and Cruz each spoke enough to get more than their fair share of speaking time, assuming you believe each candidate should have had equal time.
On the other hand, if you believe higher-polling candidates should get more speaking time, then Trump and Cruz didn’t get to speak enough. In a national average of polls, Trump gets 31 percent support and Cruz gets 22 percent. Saturday night, Trump spoke for 23 percent of the debate, while Cruz spoke for 19 percent.
Rubio’s portion of speaking time was about even with his support in the polls. Every other candidate spoke for a greater portion of the debate than their share of support in the polls. For example, Jeb Bush averaged 3.5 percent support in national polls and spoke for 15 percent of the debate.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
