Republican candidates at the second Donald Trump-less 2024 primary debate “largely left the front-runner” former president “off the hook,” the Wall Street Journal complained in a new op-ed.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did hit Trump “for not showing up to debate,” the board noted, while former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called out Trump for what he “didn’t do about China.”
And while the Journal acknowledged the candidates could be “wary of offending MAGA voters,” it explained how to challenge Trump’s record “without sounding like the left-wing scolds at CNN or MSNBC” — by referring to his poor election record and focusing on policy differences.
Trump is “the elephant not in the room, and it is no service to voters to ignore him until a week before the Iowa caucuses in January,” the board concluded.
Current polling shows Trump in first place with around 56%, DeSantis in second with 14% and Haley in third with 5%.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]