Who will stand out in tonight’s GOP Primary Debate? — USC political science professor offers insight

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — The 1st Republican Presidential Primary Debate is just hours away, with eight candidates hoping to stand out among the rest.

Frontrunner and former President Donald Trump is skipping tonight’s GOP debate and will instead sit down with former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson.

With eight candidates and now rivals of president trump qualifying to be on the debate stage tonight, University of South Carolina’s Political Science Professor and Department Vice Chair David Darmofal believes the candidates won’t be able to move ahead if they don’t directly take Trump on.

“You’ve got to walk this very fine line and thread this needle of directly challenging Trump if you want to somehow become the nominee, but not doing it in such a way that hurts you with Trump’s supporters,” says Darmofal.

One candidate he’ll have his eye on is entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

“He’s had a bit of a mini-surge in some polls, and I could see him having a strong debate performance. The person that the pressure is really on tonight, is Desantis. There have been concerns about his debate performances in the past in Florida, and he needs to give donors a real reason to believe in his candidacy tonight,” says Darmofal.

He believes Senator Tim Scott and former Ambassador Nikki Haley are faring better in South Carolina primary polls than they are nationally — only coming close to Desantis in South Carolina’s polls.

“The problem for them is that South Carolina’s Republican Primary is coming in 4th after Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, and it is also going to be quite a bit later than those earlier states, and as a consequence they can’t rely on home state support. And they’re going to have to build those national numbers,” says Darmofal.

Could Wednesday’s news of South Carolina’s Supreme Court reversing a previous ruling on a six-week abortion ban affect Scott and Haley’s responses at the debate?

“Will they argue for a national six-week abortion ban? They haven’t been doing that directly, but it’ll be interesting to see if now that their own state has enacted a six week abortion ban, whether they try to highlight that to appeal to a Republican base,” says Darmofal.

Another key to becoming the nominee will be Iowa.

“Everybody needs a good showing in Iowa. Somebody is going to have to get close to Trump in Iowa in order to stop the momentum he seemed to have. I would suspect if former President Trump does win Iowa, that’s it basically at that point. I would not see anyone likely to beat him at that point,” Darmofal says.