CBS Republican Debate: Live Coverage

It was an appropriately lively debate for a Saturday night. The Republican candidates were vicious to one another, the crowd was riled up, and the most important story of the evening — the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — was largely drowned out in the noise.

As we’ve done after every debate, the FiveThirtyEight staff anonymously submitted grades based on how much we think the candidates helped or hurt themselves in the quest for the nomination. The highest marks went to Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who each got a B+. Donald Trump averaged a C+ instead.

But as I’ve said after every recent debate, it’s hard to assess what the viewers at home will think — perhaps especially after a brawl as wild and wooly as this one. For that matter, there wasn’t that much agreement among our staff about how well the candidates did. Two of our voters gave Bush an A, for instance, while another gave him a C. Trump’s grades ranged from B+ to C-. So we’re a little ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on this one. That doesn’t mean the debate won’t matter — it might matter a lot — but we’d like to see how the reaction plays out over the next couple of days, and how it interacts with the news about Scalia.

It’s worth remembering, however, that a lot of positions Trump was espousing in the debate, including his harsh critiques of George W. Bush and the Iraq War, and his defenses of Planned Parenthood and eminent domain, are not very popular with Republicans (although some would be smart positions to take during the general election). George W. Bush’s favorability rating among Republicans is 67 percent, for example, while just 8 percent of Republicans take an unfavorable view of him.

Trump’s performance tonight may help him with his base, but it won’t necessarily help him to expand his coalition, and perhaps the whole question the nomination turns upon is whether Trump can go from having 25 percent to 35 percent support to 50 percent-plus as other candidates drop out of the running.