Winners, Losers From the 3rd GOP Debate

Republican presidential candidates gathered in Miami on Wednesday for their third debate, minus former President Trump, who is polling higher than all his rivals put together—and for the third time, Trump was widely seen as a winner. While Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott discussed issues including foreign policy, Trump held a raucous rally in nearby Hialeah. During the debate, criticism of the frontrunner was largely restrained, with the five candidates focusing on attacking each other. More:

• Nikki Haley. The New York Times describes her as a "power center" on the stage who delivered a "forceful performance that took advantage of the night's focus on foreign policy to present a clear and hawkish vision of America's role in the world." The former US ambassador to the UN is battling it out with DeSantis for the No. 2 spot in the polls, and her rising profile made her a target for other candidates including Ramaswamy, which led to one of the night's more memorable exchanges.

• Ron DeSantis. On home turf, the Florida governor had a good night, according to the Miami Herald, with "a chance to talk at length about Israel, gunning down Mexican cartels and other topics." But Andrew Prokop at Vox—who lists all five candidates as losers—notes that even though DeSantis remains far behind in the polls, with time running out to turn things around, he "played it safe again, taking only the most careful shots at Trump."
• Abortion rights. Aaron Blake at the Washington Post lists abortion rights among the winners, noting that the debate took place the day after Ohio became the seventh state where voters chose abortion rights. "When asked to account for the string of losses, the candidates had little to offer and seemed to largely, if tacitly, grant that abortion rights would be here to stay," Blake writes.
• Israel. Andrew Stanton at Newsweek lists Israel among the winners, noting that the candidates all voiced support for the country and said they would tell Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu he has the "the right and responsibility to respond to the Hamas attack."

• Vivek Ramaswamy. The businessman's "troll-approach finally went too far" on Wednesday, Niall Stanage, one of numerous analysts declaring Ramaswamy a loser, writes at the Hill. Beyond the attack on Haley's daughter, a move likely to alienate the "suburban women voters whom the GOP badly needs to win," Ramaswamy also described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a Nazi, Stanage writes. While many GOP voters are skeptical about continued aid to Ukraine, many may "recoil at such a label being affixed to a Jewish man leading his nation's resistance to Vladimir Putin's Russian invasion," he writes.
• Tim Scott. The senator, who narrowly qualified for the debate, didn't have a bad night, but he failed to make much of an impact, Karissa Waddick writes at USA Today. "Without a singular shining moment ... Wednesday's debate could have been one of Scott's last (chances) to make an impression on voters and donors alike," she writes, noting that qualifications will be stricter for the Dec. 6 debate in Alabama.
• Chris Christie. Christie toned down his criticism of Trump in this debate—but while his performance was reasonably solid, "he didn't appear particularly fired up about a presidential bid that seems to be going nowhere," Prokop writes at Vox. "Without an opportunity to confront Trump directly, Christie seems to have lost his reason for running," writes Sarah Longwell at the New York Times. "He deserves praise for his substantive, competent answers, but there's not much of a market for that in the Republican primaries."

(More Republican debate stories.)