As Steve Miller famously sang, “Time keeps on ticking… into the future.”
Republican presidential hopefuls who want to upend former President Donald Trump must know the feeling well. But among the five candidates who took to the debate stage in Miami Wednesday night, the clock ticks loudest for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
DeSantis has spent more than a year as the main alternative to Trump, but remains in that second position in most polls. Haley, on the other hand, has slowly built support and recent polls put her on par with DeSantis.
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Both came into the debate with momentum. (Haley had rising poll numbers, DeSantis had the coveted recent endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.) Both needed a big performance, with the Iowa caucuses kicking off the primary calendar in just 67 days.
And both delivered—though Haley probably “won” the debate, thanks to an assist from Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump was once again a no-show, as he had been for the previous two debates. And yet he has remained ahead in polls leading up to the 2024 early state primaries. The five candidates who did show up took some shots at the elephant who wasn’t in the room, but mainly focused their ire on each other.
The majority of the discussion, particularly in the most-watched first hour, heavily focused on foreign policy. Questions centered on the recent attacks on Israel, how to handle Hamas, Ukraine, Russia, China, and other issues.
This played neatly into Haley’s strengths and experience. She was well-prepared for it, consistently demonstrated maturity and expertise, and appeared the most “presidential” on the stage in Miami. She spoke plainly, frequently in ordered lists that could have been bullets in a PowerPoint deck.
Haley and DeSantis locked horns occasionally—most notably in a testy exchange over who offered more support for Chinese businesses as a governor of their respective states. But Haley’s main nemesis of the evening—spurring the most quotable line of the debate—was Vivek Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy, acting as equal parts upstart and troll, started the evening by attacking debate host NBC as members of the “corrupt media” and proceeding to take shots at everyone but the absent Trump. He needled both DeSantis and Haley, but saved his most pointed barbs for the latter. At various points, he accused Haley of serving the military industrial complex, war profiteering, and being “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels.”
During the exchange over the Chinese social media app Tik Tok, Ramaswamy stepped a foot too far by pointing out that Haley’s daughter used the app, and encouraging her to get her own house in order. Haley punctuated her retort with what may be the most quotable line of the debate: “You’re just scum,” she told Ramaswamy flatly.
With that simple line, Haley added something to her policy expertise: a fighting spirit. Haley was already the grown-up, foreign policy Republican; her tete-a-tete with Ramaswamy allowed her to flex her muscles against the Joe Rogan-wannabe edgelord on the stage—a sparring partner to prepare her for the heavyweight bout that awaits if Trump ever shows his face to one of these debates.
One of the most critical themes in this debate was the struggle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party—a party still grappling with the legacy of Trump’s presidency and freshly reeling from off-year election defeats in Kentucky, Virginia, and Ohio. Some candidates, like Ramaswamy and DeSantis, have tried to align themselves closely with the former president in either temperament, views, or both. Haley (as well as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie) sought to chart a more temperamentally centrist, post-Trump course.
But if Haley was temperamentally centrist on policy, her parries with Ramaswamy (and, to a lesser extent, DeSantis) showed a willingness to scrap when she needs to.
Remember that part of Trump’s base appeal was his willingness to pick fights that other Republicans tended to shy away from. With the party riding a losing streak dating back to 2018, GOP primary voters will want their next standard bearer to be a fighter.
The race remains Trump’s to lose, as he holds the base of the party in his hand like Tic Tacs. DeSantis’ appeals to the same base of voters have not forced Trump onto the stage to defend himself.
Haley has opened a path now. If she can maintain expectations in Iowa, finish strong in New Hampshire, and win in her home state of South Carolina, she can emerge from the pack and set up a one-on-one showdown against Donald Trump heading into the Super Tuesday primaries.
It isn’t a wide path, but it’s a path. Wednesday night was her first step. But she needs to continue capitalizing. The first votes are in just over two months—and time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking.
