Republican debate: Donald Trump’s shadow hung over first nominee meeting as Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy came out on top

Former president Donald Trump wasn’t in attendance at the first Republican debate, but his presence was certainly felt.

The Republican presidential primary looks just like it did in 2016 – Godzilla and assorted pygmies.

The two winners, relatively, in the first Republican presidential debate, were Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, and businessman/entrepreneur, Vivek Ramaswamy.

But they are both still a long, long way from their party’s nomination. This time the elephant wasn’t in the room. Donald Trump is miles ahead in the polls for who Republicans would choose as their presidential candidate.

The first Republican primary debate was actually a bit better than we had a right to expect.

There was, surprisingly, a lot on policy. All eight agreed that China is the biggest threat to the US, that the US must secure its southern borders, that spending is too high and that’s contributing to inflation, that the US should unleash its energy potential, that Joe Biden has hurt the economy and diminished America.

Trump is much more than 20 per cent ahead of his nearest Republican rival, Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. So it’s pretty understandable that Trump declined to appear personally in this debate.

The first debate in Milwaukee between Republican presidential candidate hopefuls.

Everyone on the stage was prepared to make some criticism of Trump, though only former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, really went on the attack. But all of them, even Vivek Ramaswamy, endorsed Mike Pence’s actions as vice-president in defying Trump and as president of the Senate certifying Biden’s election as president.

But happily, Trump didn’t dominate the debate, which meant, in a novel twist, it could actually concern itself with serious questions of policy. Sadly, Trump is likely to dominate the actual primaries and the election itself. That means the election won’t focus on the issues that it should focus on.

Some of the Republican eight – former Arkansas Governor, Asa Hutchison and North Dakota Governor, Doug Burgum – have so little national name recognition they shouldn’t really have been on the stage at all.

Several of the participants are probably running to be Trump’s vice-presidential running mate, especially Nicky Haley and Ramaswamy.

Pence you would think has no chance to run as Trump’s vice-president again and a very, very small chance of being the eventual nominee for the presidency.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the most prominent African-American Republican, would grace any presidential ticket that chose him. Whether he could conceivably run on a ticket with Trump is another question.

So there were two or three contests under way on the debate stage.

Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley repeatedly clashed at the event.

No-one wanted to make attacking Trump their main thing, because Trump still commands support from so much of the Republican base. Instead they wanted to establish themselves as the alternative to Trump, in the hope that his legal troubles or something else will force Trump out of the contest and they can step into the breach.

Others are running to be vice-president. Others hope that a better than expected performance at any stage of the primaries might lead to a cabinet secretary appointment. At the very least, there’s surely a big increase in speakers’ fees for anyone who made it onto the stage.

The most worrying moment was when Ramaswamy put up his hand to say he would oppose any further financial support for Ukraine.

Given Trump’s own isolationist instincts, support for normal American alliance leadership is under some attack among Republicans. Trump’s equivocations about supporting Ukraine have contributed to a weakening consensus among Republican voters for supporting Ukraine. This is not effectively balanced by the overt hostility to China. There is something like a visceral dislike even of US allies, even of allies who fight heroically for their own freedom and don’t ask the US for any troops, among Republican voters.

There was a Trump in attendance, with Donald Trump Jnr. speaking to the media following the debate.

Trump has no affection or loyalty towards Taiwan, and there must be a significant chance that he could sell Taiwan out in some grand bargain with China’s Xi Jinping.

Ramaswamy would offer no resistance to that impulse. He is the surprise, so far, of the Republican field. He’s moved into third place behind Trump and DeSantis. A bit like Trump, he’s a business background populist who is happy to say pretty radical or at least unconventional things.

He thinks climate change is a hoax. He would abolish the federal Education Department. He claimed everyone else on the stage was “already bought and sold” and were mouthpiece puppets for vested interests. He wouldn’t balance Trump and reassure voters in the way that Mike Pence did, but he’s a good debater, full of vim and vigour, utterly self confident, very happy on the attack. Indeed he’s such a good performer, in a kind of slightly more rational Trump style, that Trump could well be jealous of his performances.

Being the most radical allowed Ramaswamy to be the alternative on the stage to the seven others. DeSantis remains at number two, and would still probably be the Republican candidate if Trump, unimaginably, withdrew. But Ramaswamy clearly moved up the ladder.

The whole political outlook is intensely unpredictable. It still seems incredible that either Trump or Biden could actually be their respective party’s candidate in November next year. The whole situation, not just the Republican debate, recalls the dynamics of 2016.

Chris Christie and Mike Pence speak during a break.

All the Republicans are hoping Trump goes away but Trump still dominates. The Democrats are reassuring themselves that Trump cannot possibly be elected. That’s just what they said in 2016, so did lots of commentators (including me as it turns out). We were all wrong then. So just as in 2016 the Democrats stuck with a deeply flawed candidate in Hillary Clinton, so it looks as though they’re going to stick with a tremendously unpopular and unsuccessful president in Joe Biden, with one of the least impressive vice-presidents, in Kamala Harris, in many decades.

This Republican debate actually showed that there are quite a few Republicans who could plausibly make a good president. But the chance of any of them getting through the primaries are slim.

So Godzilla versus Sleepy Joe still, astoundingly, looks the most likely contest come November.