And Then There Were Two (Three)

Nikki Haley And Ron DeSantis Go Head To Head In The Last GOP Debate Before The Iowa Caucuses

The RNC’s final debate before the Iowa Caucuses will begin in an hour, at 9PM Eastern Time.

Corporate media of course wants to play up the “drama” aspect of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis being the only two remaining “contenders” on the debate stage. For the first time in this election cycle, the GOP candidates (minus, of course, Donald Trump) will get a chance to go head to head, with no extraneous interjections from other candidates.

The fifth Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election season will also be its first head-to-head matchup.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are the only candidates taking part in Wednesday night’s debate in Iowa. President Donald Trump, widely considered the GOP field’s front-runner, will again be skipping the event.

Other previous debate participants, including conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, didn’t make the cut. Hours before the debate was set to begin, Christie dropped out of the race.

Yet even before the debate begins, its most significant aspect is once again the absence of the GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, who instead will be in Iowa holding a town hall meeting.

Trump’s decision to skip the debates entirely has so far served him extremely well, based on the RealClearPolitics polling data. Nationally, Trump’s lead over the rest of the GOP field has increased as the debates have progressed.

In Iowa, the trend has been largely the same.

In New Hampshire, Nikki Haley has been making inroads into Trump’s polling lead, but even there she is still trailing by double digits.

Notably for New Hampshire, Trump has not lost any ground in the polls. Rather, he simply has not gained any, while Nikki Haley has pulled support away from Ron DeSantis in particular.

Can either candidate make a strong enough showing tonight to win in either Iowa or New Hampshire? That seems unlikely, given Trump’s tremendous lead both nationally and in Iowa and New Hampshire.

I will, as I have done throughout, give my take on tonight’s debate tomorrow. However, it is difficult to see what either the candidates or the RNC hope to achieve with yet another “Trump-less” debate. It will take a debating “Hail Mary” for either candidate to close ground on Trump in time to win in Iowa on the 15th, or in New Hampshire on the 23rd.