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Jason Paul (pictured) is a Connecticut political analyst and Democratic campaign consultant.
1. Debates don’t change everything instantly.
Everyone wants to imagine that every debate is going to change everything but the underlying dynamics of the race can very often be sticky. There are exceptions. In 2012, Rick Perry’s poor performance in the debates doomed his candidacy. More often, even a particularly strong or weak appearance doesn’t shake things up. That seems to be the case in this race. The polling before the debate had Donald Trump clearly in first place with about 30%, Ben Carson in second place with about 20 percent, and Jeb Bush win third with 7.8 oercent. The remaining 12, particularly those candidates who were on the stage with Trump, were all bunched together somewhere below that. The gap between first and second, and second to third is considerably larger than the gap between third and last. That makes it very hard for any one of those 13 (including Bush) to score an absolute breakthrough in the debate.
2. Because of multiple candidate field dynamics Trump did better than people think.
The press seemed to want to crown a new winner after the debate. But the reality is that with this many candidates in the race Donald Trump has a built-in advantage. If a clear rival does not emerge, and that seems to be the case, than he can win by default. After Wednesday, support seemed to scatter among the other candidates, leaving him in first place. Because of his large lead going in,Trump can lose a third of his current support and likely still stay in first. Being in the lead helps a lot. Given how much the press likes to cover Trump, so long as he holds onto first place thing will go well for him. In addition, it is often enough for existing supporters to like a candidate’s debate performance, even if the crowd doesn’t. Although online polls are generally not particularly valuable, this one http://www.drudgereport.com/now.htm suggests Trump’s supporters remain enthusiastic. The over 350,000 votes Trump got is more than 1% of the entire number of votes cast in the 2012 Republican Primary process. If your supporters are happy and you are winning, you can’t do that badly.
3. Carson and Walker probably lost.
Scott Walker has been struggling for a while now. This debate, in which he spoke for the least amount of time, will not help his cause. It might not even have been his fault. It seems clear that Walker was not given as many questions as the other candidates. Still, they were pushy and he was not. He didn’t change the trend lines and that does not bear well for his prospects. Ben Carson also struggled as he seemed to miss the chance to appear presidential. He needed to keep gaining to catch Trump. There was hardly a moment where Carson seemed to be in control of the stage. That worked pretty well in the first debate; humility can be appealing but it doesn’t hold up in the long run, especially for someone running for president. The Drudge poll supports these observations in both cases. Carson finished only sixth,and Walker was a very weak tenth. Both needed to gain to solidify their position and in not gaining, they actually were weakened. Walker probably suffered more. Because Carson’s appeal is fairly inexplicable, it is hard to predict how his supporters will react. It’s likely he’ll struggle to stay relevant, particularly if donors saw the same thing Drudge poll participants did.
4. Fiorina will get another look.
This is definitely Carly Fiorina’s moment. The Drudge report had her in second by a very wide margin. She seemed to do even better as pundits weighed in, meaning the percentage who thought she won the debate increased as people heard the consensus view that she had done well. She also is the never-elected candidate most likely to be embraced by the corporate crowd. TV pundits are almost all pro-corporate to a certain extent, so the lead-up coverage was pretty strong for her. She did not disappoint. What remains to be seen is if she can actually take support away from Trump as a perceived outsider, or is she really in the establishment lane with candidates such as Bush and Kasich and is taking away support from them. Regardless, this debate means we will hear more from her. Since she started in the smaller debate, that is an impressive feat.
5. Nothing happened to really change the race.
Overall, the general tenor of the race did not change. If you went into the debate believing Trump can win, you still believe he can. If you are certain it will be someone else, all that happened is who that might be got more complicated. You can now reasonably add Carly Fiorina to the list. At the moment, eight of the candidates seem to have at least a possible path to victory. Paul, Christie and Huckabee all seem shut out at the moment, but even they might have a back up plan. Each of the 11 candidates on the main stage is still alive to varying degrees and thus the race retains its shape.