Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley faced off in the fifth GOP debate Wednesday night and while there were fewer presidential hopefuls on stage than in previous debates, the outcome was similar: Many commentators saw frontrunner Donald Trump, who once again skipped the debate, as a winner. Matt Lewis at the Daily Beast says there were hopes that having just two candidates on stage would "incentivize a serious policy debate"—but instead, there was a "semi-childish, back-and-forth debate." "It turns out that giving DeSantis and Haley more time and a brighter spotlight just revealed their flaws," Lewis writes, adding that neither candidate had a "moment of authenticity that might reveal something about who they are as a person." More takeaways:
- DeSantis didn't get what he needed. Aaron Blake at the Washington Post doesn't describe Haley as the winner, but he says DeSantis was definitely the loser. The Florida governor "didn't have a bad night," despite some stumbles on foreign policy, Blake writes. "But he's probably the one who needed the most out of this debate, given the trajectory of their respective campaigns. And he didn't seem to do much to change that."