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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Tom McCarthy

Republican debate: the Trump, the bad and the ugly – as it happened

republican debate
Marco Rubio, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz on the Republican presidential debate stage in South Carolina. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Summary

The sixth Republican presidential debate is history. Here’s a summary of what we learned:

  • The debate delivered on much-touted friction between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and between Marco Rubio and Chris Christie. There was a bonus section in which Rubio slammed Cruz in about eight different ways, prompting this exchange:
  • There were a lot of questions about how to address America’s gun violence epidemic, but only one answer: uphold the second amendment, arm everyone. Rubio and Cruz both warned that the government “could confiscate your guns.”
  • Trump kept up his attack on Cruz for being born in Canada and thus possibly ineligible to be president. Cruz said Trump was just bringing it up because his poll numbers are falling in Iowa.
  • After calling Barack Obama a “feckless weakling” in the last debate, Christie had more choice words for the president, calling him a “petulant child” and saying the GOP was coming to “kick your rear end out of the White House.”
  • Cruz and Trump tangled over what, exactly, Cruz meant when he accused Trump of having “New York values.” Cruz said only New Yorkers don’t know what that means. Trump talked about the city’s response to 9/11.
  • Trump and Cruz, their “bromance” over, in Trump’s estimation, also argued about who was polling better in Iowa. Real Clear Politics averages think it’s Trump, by a razor-thin .4%.
  • When you stack all those up, the night appears to have been quite punchy. And we haven’t gotten to Bush, Kasich, and Carson.
  • Bush stumbled a bit in his intro, after his wont, saying “terrorism is on the run,” which sounds like a good thing. He did mount a persuasive criticism of Trump’s call to ban Muslims from US borders, saying the thinking alienates regional allies in the Middle East.
  • Kasich responsibly returned, at each opportunity, to policy specifics on issues ranging from community policing to the Pentagon budget to taxes. But did he gain traction? He seemed to be having a separate debate.
  • Carson didn’t have much to say. He called for greater national unity. He warned about an electromagnetic pulse attack.
  • The candidates attacked Hillary Clinton. Rubio said the Democrat was “unqualified to be commander in chief because she “lied” “to those four families in Benghazi.”

And here’s our full report from Ed Pilkington and Ben Jacobs in North Charleston:See

See you bright and early for another episode of fear and laughing on the campaign trail.

Updated

Here’s some data crunching via Twitter, weighing who got the most attention and which debate moments went big:

Final share of conversation for #GOPDebate

-Trump 38%
-Cruz 22%
-Bush 11%
-Rubio 10%
-Carson 9%
Ranked follower growth GOP candidates:

1. @RealDonaldTrump
2. @TedCruz
3. @MarcoRubio
4. @RandPaul
5. @ChrisChristie
Largest follower growth (all candidates):

1. @RealDonaldTrump
2. @BernieSanders
3. @TedCruz
4. @MarcoRubio
5. @RandPaul
Top Moments:
1. Christie to President Obama, “kick your rear end out of the White House.” https://amp.twimg.com/v/8fde7a99-854f-4cd5-82c0-9e2b2718b07f
2. Trump discusses 9/11 and “New York values.”
3. Trump and Cruz go back-and-forth on polls https://amp.twimg.com/v/0a2dc86d-81f3-4130-b105-c9ef49872c78
Most-Tweeted topics during #GOPDebate:

1. Foreign Affairs
2. Gun Issues
3. Economy

The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs is in the spin room in North Charleston. This from Ben Carson is – positively reassuring:

The top search item of the night, taxes, according to Google trends, is a bit counterintuitive, given that there was relatively little discussion of tax policy, apart from general-ish calls for a reformed tax code (not counting the full frontal attack by Rubio on Cruz’s VAT-style tax plan):

These speaking time breakdowns are always interesting. If you thought Carson was retiring, you’re not wrong. There are two top tiers here: Trump-Cruz doing most of the talking, followed by Rubio-Christie.

Who comes out strong? Republican messaging maven Rick Wilson calls it for Cruz-Rubio:

Cool shirt.

The gun violence section of the evening’s debate may not have been much of a debate, with all the candidates voicing their unconstrained enthusiasm for gun rights. But at least the moderators took the time and were sufficiently thorough to take the issue, and the question, to every candidate onstage.

Hillary Clinton is on Jimmy Fallon, coming up next! Looks fun. Looks funny. Good times.

Updated

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

Well, that was two-and-a-half hours of my life I’ll never get back.

To recap:

      • Donald Trump is still a jerk who will make America great again by making bombastic statements with little relationship to reality;
      • Ted Cruz is the college debater who knows how to condescend and overexplain his errors until you don’t care that he made them as long as he stops talking and also would like you to see a movie about Benghazi instead of the Congressional hearings;
      • Jeb! Bush was probably a great politicians in the 90s, for the 90s, like the Hootie of politicians;
      • Ben Carson has read your comments and is praying for your eternal soul;
      • Chris Christie thinks we can fix our bridge problems by lowering taxes (which isn’t a metaphor, except that it is);
      • Marco Rubio, when properly hydrated, is kind of snarky and will definitely run for president again;
      • John Kasich is still running for president this time and is polling better than Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Carky Fiorina and Mike Huckabee, like it’s good to lead a swing state or something.
    There’s only 563 more Republican debates to go! Or at least it feels that way.

Updated

It’s over. That was a short one, for them. Only 150 minutes.

Snap reaction: weak/stumbly for Bush, strong for Trump and Rubio, Cruz on his heels/ under attack but comfortable and capable there, Kasich reasonable but maybe irrelevant, Carson was Carson, and Christie – a strong night for Christie?

Updated

Closing statements

Here they are (we hesitate to type “at last”), the closing statements.

Kasich: My grandfather died of black lung. I fixed the Pentagon budget. I stand up for seniors. I will continue to fight for you. Thank you.

Bush: Results count. I did a good job in Florida. I have a good Isis plan. I ask for your support. A safer and stronger America. Ho.

Christie: Folks at home. The State of the Union was “a fantasyland.” This country is not respected. I love this country. We need someone to fight. I lived my whole life fighting. I’ll fight Hillary Clinton.

Carson: I’ve encountered Americans. They’re mad. Bureaucrats bad. We need “We the People.” Join me in truth, honesty and integrity. BenCarson.com.

Rubio: America is founded on rights from God. Meaning free enterprise. “The American miracle.” Obama wants to change America not fix it. Obama bad. 2016 is a turning point. Clinton bad. Rubio good.

Cruz: ‘13 hours.’ Tomorrow morning, a new movie will debut about the incredible bravery of Benghazi Benghazi BenGHAZI. [Now there’s product placement.] If I’m elected, I will have the back of the military and law enforcement.

Trump: I stood yesterday with 75 construction workers. They were crying. They were watching the Iranian news. “Iranian wise guys having guns to their heads.” “If I’m president there won’t be stupid deals anymore.”

Fact check, DANGER edition!

So, cops came up a couple times:

But data editor Mona Chalabi is here with the truth about making America safe again:

Is America really a more dangerous country than it used to be? Statistics from the FBI on violent crime provide a pretty indisputable picture.

Whether you’re tracking the total number of incidents or overall crimes per capita, violent crime has been on a downward trend for two decades.

Violent crime in the United States
Violent crime in the United States Photograph: The Atlantic

TLDR version, for the Fox News host who all but acknowledged the so-called “Ferguson effect” (more videos of police killings = scared cops and more crime):

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier

Rubio has finally learned that you can’t play the nice guy in these debates and went after Cruz’s flip-floppery on issues and sucking up to Iowans by voting for agricultural subsidies and income support.

Cruz, though, was having none of Rubio’s ankle-biting and condescendingly tried his let-me-correct-the-record spiel that had been so popular when he pulled it out on the New York Times in absentia and Trump’s birtherism. This time, though, the crowd booed him. The pony might, it seems, need more than one debate trick.

And then Jeb snarked Cruz and Rubio by calling them “back-bench Senators”. Oh, snap, Grandpa.

Another break! Who’s losing? Let’s talk about who’s losing this time, instead of who’s winning. Let us hear it in the comments.

Bush pipes up and dismisses Cruz and Rubio as “back-bench senators.” “I thought I’d get that off my chest,” he says.

Rubio and Cruz clash on immigration

Rubio now ventures an attack on Cruz on his past support for expanding the number of guest-worker and skilled worker immigration visas. It’s a pretty strong attack, with cheers building as Rubio speaks.

“That’s not consistent conservatism, it’s political calculation,” Rubio says.

Then he widens his attack on Cruz, hitting him for voting for the USA Freedom Act to rein in – though it didn’t demonstrably – government surveillance. “Edward Snowden is a traitor, and when I’m president, and we get our hands of him, he will stand trial for treason!” Rubio says.

“I appreciate you dumping your oppo-research folder,” Cruz says. “At least half of the things Marco said, are flat out false.”

Fact-check, let's slow down a minute on immigration edition

Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. The senator from Florida can pivot all he wants, from Rubio’s immigration flip-flop to ... Edward Snowden (???). Ted Cruz can call immigration policy a “national security” issue. But, well, facts from Mona Chalabi here are very much necessary:

The total number of illegal immigrants in the US is lower now than it was in 2007 when Republican President George Bush was in office. Current estimates from Pew Research Center show that there are around 11.3 million illegal immigrants in America – a number which has stayed relatively constant for the past five years and represents about 3.5% of the population (although illegal immigrants make up a larger share of the labor force: 5.1%).

Around 1 in 2 of those people are Mexican and 60% of illegal immigrants live in just six states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois.

Illegal immigrants in the United States
Illegal immigrants in the United States Photograph: Pew Charitable Trust

Fact-check, Trump's 'great company' edition

Data editor Mona Chalabi again:

Trump says “I built a great company”. Not so.

As several other eagle-eyed fact checkers have pointed out, Trump’s company would be worth $10bn more today if he’d simply taken all that money he inherited and invested it in index funds. In other words, if he’d simply sat on his hands since 1974, he’d be a richer man today.

Now Rubio is ranting about “radical crazies named Isis.” He’s still really awake. If this president thing does not work out, he might look into a career as an auctioneer.

Kasich takes a question about community policing. He talks about his efforts in Ohio and winds up with a heartfelt, almost choked-up call for communities to rise above politics.

Folks, at the end of the day, the country needs healed.

Kasich has a knack for pithy wisdom. But for the life of him, he can’t pronounce it without starting with “folks.”

Updated

Christie is talking about the conversation he would have with his attorney general.

Some smart money thinks that Christie himself is up for attorney general, should he not snag the nom.

Christie says he would tell his AG to “let our police know how proud we are of them.”

They’re back! Trump is asked about his net worth. Will he put his assets in a blind trust if he’s president?

Good, creative question!

“It’s an interesting question,” Trump says. Then, kind of surprisingly, and maybe a sign that this is actually closer to happening than some might admit:

If I become president, I couldn’t care less about my company. It’s peanuts.

I’m gonna have Ivanka, Don and Eric, and say run it, kids.

I wouldn’t care about anything but our country. Anything.

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

If you spaced out during the economics lesson of the last 20 minutes, you weren’t the only one – as demonstrated by Donald Trump’s limited understanding of macroeconomics. But then, Americans’ economic literacy is so.e of the worst in the developed world.

Another commercial break. They’re coming back after these messages. We’re going to exercise some New York values meanwhile. If only we knew what that meant.

Rubio seems to be winning this back-and-forth. He holds out the specter of a 16% corporate tax becoming 30% under a Democratic president.

“Now you’ve got a Europe!” Rubio says. Zut alors.

Christie jumps in and insists on answering the question Rubio ignored, about entitlements.

“No, you’ve had your chance Marco, you blew it!” Christie barks. Smack! Rubio whimpers into silence.

“The reason why no one wants to answer entitlements up here is because it’s hard. It’s a hard problem,” Christie continues. Good night for Christie.

Rubio attacks Cruz over VAT-style tax

Rubio does not get the tax Q. He gets an entitlement Q. He doesn’t care! He’s going to attack Cruz over the VAT_like tax Cruz supports.

“I’m not going to have something Ted described, which is a value-added tax,” Rubio says:

That’s why they have it in Europe, because it’s a way to blindfold the people. That’s what Ronald Reagan said. ... That VAT tax is really bad for seniors.. they don’t get the income tax break. But the prices go up.

When I’m president of the United States, I’m going to side with Ronald Reagan on this, and not Nancy Pelosi, and we’re not going to have a VAT tax.

Cruz replies: It’s not a VAT tax. It’s a 16% corporate tax. [It’s a VAT tax.]

More on that from our resident Rubio correspondent, Sabrina Siddiqui, here:

Updated

Trump calls “corporate inversion” “one of the biggest problems we have”.

“So many companies are going to leave our country.”

Once more from data editor Mona Chalabi, with deficits!

We’re talking the budget – or, to be specific, the big ole hole in it.

But it’s worth noting that things have improved: the deficit was at $478 billion at the end of 2015, or 2.6% of gross domestic product. That might sound bad (and it is) ,but it’s down $10 billion compared with last year – and the deficit currently sits at its lowest level since 2007.

Carson takes off on an answer about stopping companies leaving the United States. How to do it?

“I would suggest a fair tax system, and that’s what we have proposed,” Carson says. He’s called for a 15% flat tax with no exceptions or deductions. And his second recommendation is to “stop spending money.”

Ok he’s still talking. But we want to hear Marco Rubio attack Ted Cruz over Cruz’s plan for an ersatz Value-added tax. Here comes.

They’re back. Infrastructure spending question, good stuff. How will you fix ailing roads and bridges, Chris Christie?

How will you fix the bridges, Chris Christie?

He says he’d levy a one-time tax on repatriating profits held overseas by US companies and use it to invest in infrastructure. “We’ll tax it that one time at 8.75% -- of $2tn, that’s a lot of money.”

Also if you just close some of the bridges, that would save having to rebuild them, wouldn’t it?

One more break! OK, here’s the home stretch. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who’s winning?

Hey here’s a commercial for the new Michael Bay Benghazi movie, 13 hours. Trump wants America to see it, the Des Moines Register reports:

Fact-check, 'China China China' edition!

Don’t you just love/hate the way Trump says China? Anyway, here’s data editor Mona Chalabi on how the other side of the world feels about the land of exceptionalism:

Well, the Chinese don’t feel so great about America either, if polling data is anything to go by.

Several candidates have talked on the debate stage – and ‘China! China! China!’ – about the way the United States is viewed by the rest of the world. That sort of rhetoric can feel vague and hard to measure, but polling from Pew Research Center offers some clues about how accurate these claims are.

Overall, America’s image remains largely positive in the 39 countries surveyed by the folks at Pew. Generally, views were more favorable among younger respondents and in countries which are military allies with the US. But in China, more respondents have an unfavorable opinion of the United States (49%) than a favorable one (44%).

Pew Research assessment of US popularity
Pew Research assessment of US popularity Photograph: Pew Charitable Trust

Trump calls Bush 'weak person'

Trump: “We don’t need a weak person being the president of the United States. And that’s what we’d get, in Jeb.”

Updated

Rubio joins the China tariff debate. He says costs from tariffs get passed on to the consumer. He mentions buying ties. He’s wearing an electric blue tie. He’s on to tax reform. Now on to Obamacare. And then the debt. He does jump around a lot!

“It takes too long, they’re sucking us dry,” says Trump, appropos the slow approach on China. “It’ll never happen, because they’ll let their currency go up.”

Then Trump on tractors:

Friends of mine are ordering Komatsu tractors now, because they’re devaluing the Yen to an extent where you can’t order a Caterpillar tractor.

Context-free highlights from the mouth of Donald Trump:

Kasich says that what Trump just said “has got merit.”

Trump’s reply: “I’m liking him tonight.”

Gets a laugh from the crowd.

Trump’s asked about an NY Times report that quoted him saying he supported a 45% tariff on goods from China. He says:

That was wrong. They were wrong. It’s the New York Times, they are always wrong.

Then Trump starts talking about China. “Where the 45% comes in, that would be the amount, based on their [currency] devaluations, that we should get!” Makes no sense, given the poor performance of the Chinese currency versus the dollar over the longer term.

“I would certainly start taxing goods from China,” he says.

“I love China, I love the Chinese people, but they laugh. They cannot believe how stupid the American leadership is.”

Updated

Was that enough back-and-forth for you – from a stage full of Republicans – on Trump’s stance on banning Muslims from entering the United States? Because, notes data editor Mona Chalabi:

He’s backed by many Americans when he says so: in December, a Washington Post-ABC news poll found that 25% of all respondents (not just Republicans) strongly support a ban on Muslim immigration and a further 11% said they supported the idea ‘somewhat’.

We knew it wouldn’t be long before Donald Trump started talking about how he was going to force China’s leaders to polish his boots or fetch his newspaper or whatever.
Here’s China Girl from Let’s Dance.

China China China

Cruz chimes in. He wants to suspend refugees from countries where Isis operates. He goes over time. He ignores the bell. “We will not weaken them, we will not degrade them, we will utterly and completely destroy Isis,” he says.

Carson gets the Q about refugees. He calls for common sense and taking the advice of friends from Israel.

Bush asks what, is the United States going to ban Muslims from India, from Syria?

A Bush, bringing sense to a foreign affairs debate.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

Moderator Neil Cavuto pushed Bush on whether calling Trump “unhinged” for calling for a Muslim ban means that Trump’s supporters are unhinged. Bush allowed that people are scared and that Obama has created an atmosphere in which people are scared, but denied that Trump’s supports are unhinged.

This is why Bush is struggling and will continue to: the easy answer, both in terms of pandering and reframing the debate, was that Trump’s followers aren’t unhinged, but that Trump is following them and feeding their fears, and that leadership isn’t joining in fear but leading people out of it. It’s easy to validate people’s feelings while not endorsing the reasons for them. Bush didn’t do that, and in that failure he essentially concedes the issue to Trump.

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

Jeb! went back on Trump-patrol in response to Trump’s super bigoted plan to ban Muslims from entering the country. The heartbreak is that he’s absolutely right but, because he said it so cautiously, his message will be lost.

“I hope you’ll reconsider!” Bush said, adding that the world wouldn’t take us seriously if we do such things.

It’s one of the more sensible things that’s been said all night but asking Trump to consider changing his views just isn’t going to do it.

Refugees, refugees, refugees, “utterly and completely destroy Isis” – polls, anyone? Here’s Mona Chalabi:

A majority of US voters would agree with the candidates views on Syrian refugees according to a recent poll from Quinnipiac University: 51% oppose accepting Syrian refugees to the country. Among Republicans specifically, that number rises to 82%.

Rubio gets in, all peppy. He talks about bride slaves and massacred Yazidis.

Then he actually gets an applause line out of this:

If we do not know who you are, and we do not know why are you coming, when I am president, you are not getting in to the United States of America.

Christie: “You can’t just ban all Muslims. You have to ban the radical Islamic jihadists.”

That sounds like a good plan. Add that question to the customs form.

Kasich is asked about Trump’s Muslim ban. Kasich says he would pause Syrian refugees, “but we don’t want to put everybody in the same category.”

Then he starts doing his thing where he names countries in the Middle East. “We need the Saudis, we need the Egyptians, we need the Jordanians.” He’s said it multiple times tonight and maybe ten times in six debates.

Fact-check, New York values edition!

Here is political reporter Ben Jacobs, live from the debate in South Carolina:

Donald Trump scored a powerful rhetorical point against Ted Cruz when asked to respond on the Texas senator’s attack against so-called “New York values”.

Earlier this week, Cruz attacked Trump for embodying New York values and suggested the real estate mogul play the song “New York, New York” at his events.

When asked to explain his comments, Cruz initially insisted, “People in South Carolina know what New York values are.” He then described the city as “socially liberal” with “a focus on money and the media”. Cruz ended by pointing out that “not a lot of conservatives come from Manhattan”.

Trump immediately rebutted by mentioning former Manhattan resident William F Buckley, the patron saint of modern conservatism. Trump then pivoted to the 9/11 attacks. He described watching the Twin Towers collapse – “we saw death and the smell of death was in the air for months,” he said – which left Cruz left awkwardly applauding Trump’s invocation of the terrorist attack and those who died as the New Yorker went on to describe Cruz’s comments as insulting.

While Cruz may be the champion debater on stage, Trump clearly came away the better from that exchange.

OK, let’s get a fact-check from data editor Mona Chalabi:

After that memorable back-and-forth about New York’s Democrat credentials, we thought it was worth looking at the data.

Actually, the state needs to be broken down into several areas to really understand it’s political preferences – and once you’ve done that, the Democrats really don’t perform as well as you might expect (possibly because they complacently take it as a given that a win is a very safe bet here). The chart below from the New York Times shows that overall, the state isn’t as blue as you might expect.

New York political preferences
New York political preferences Photograph: New York Times

Bush: Trump 'unhinged' on Muslims

Bush cuts in and speaks his form of stumbling sense. “I hope you will reconsider,” he says. He reminds Trump, as he has in previous debates, that the Kurds and other regional allies are, in fact, Muslim.

“We don’t have to have refugees come to our country, but all Muslims? Seriously?” Bush says.

Bush is asked about calling Trump’s comments “unhinged.”

“Yeah they are unhinged,” Bush says.

But we’re running for President of the United States here. This is a different kind of job. You have to lead.

Trump replies: “I want security for this country. I’m tired of seeing what’s going on. We have a serious problem.” He goes on to talk about Mexico border security and the SanBernardino attack.

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

Donald Trump: “We’re laughed at all over the world.”

Fact check: in 2003, shortly after House Republicans insisted that French fries served on US Capitol property be referred to as “Freedom fries”, I can confirm that we were laughed at all over the world.

If everyone’s laughing at us, it’s because they’re watching this circus and pay attention to Republican policies, not because President Obama isn’t trying to bar all Muslims from entering the United States.

Trump: 'We can’t be the stupid country anymore'

Trump is asked about his plan to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

Has he reconsidered?

Trump says:

No.

That was a pretty big lob-ball for him.

Then he expounds a bit, including about his “many great Muslim friends.” We have to stop political correctness, he says.

“We can’t be the stupid country anymore,” he says.

Running for president is hard. These Republican candidates are required to pull off quite a trick here. Namely, expressing a sort-of Orwellian doublethink:

Everything in America is appalling. Everything in America is amazing.

For example:

The American military is failing and needs more money to be the best in the world, Jeb Bush said just now. But also: America already has the strongest military in the world and is the only country that can deal with Isis, Jeb Bush said in October.

Donald Trump says only he can make America great again. But he also says America is already the greatest nation in the world.

Ted Cruz says he would “carpet bomb” Syria. But Ted Cruz also says that America should not be the world’s policeman. And that America should not “send in military to try to produce democratic utopians in distant lands”.

People should earn more money, but we shouldn’t introduce a minimum wage. People should have healthcare, but the Affordable Care Act totally sucks. Immigrants have made a huge contribution to America’s success, but now they have to go home.

So yeah. Running for president is hard.

Updated

Heeeeere’s Mona Chalabi, with more on the reasoning behind all the Christie-style “we will fight Isis” bluster:

Now that we’re on the topic of security, it’s pretty obvious that the candidates have done their basic homework.

The constant references to Iran and Isis make sense: polling data from Pew shows how threat perceptions differ.

Republicans are more frightened than Democrats of everything. Except climate change.

American threat perception
American threat perception Photograph: Pew Charitable Trust

Q for Christie: How important is it to remove Assad?

Christie says Obama and Clinton have mismanaged the situation terribly, singling out Obama’s “red line” chemical weapons moment that did not result in any substantive attack on Assad.

“We’re not going to have peace in Syria” without a no-fly zone, and “you’re not going to have peace in Syria with Assad in charge,” Christie says.

“If you were going to leave this to Hillary Clinton, the person who gave us this foreign policy?”

They’re back. It’s about the Islamic state fighters and how to get ‘em.

Lindsey Graham is in the audience, and he’s the setup for the question. Is Graham right to want to send 20,000 ground troops to Iraq and Syria to take out Isis?

Who do we want to hear from on this? Ben Carson? Anyway he’s answering.

He says we need to take the caliphate away from the group and the first step is talking to US military officials.

He says something about attacking cigar smokers in Raqqa with special Ops. Why not?

Another break! What did you think of that guns debate? Substantive stuff – if the replies were rather homogenous. How about that Cruz-Trump exchange on New York values?

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

According to Marco Rubio, Isis attacked us in Philadelphia last week and in San Bernardino a few weeks ago. Isis did it, not some losers who slapped a brand on their own rage.

It’s like Marco Rubio saw Great Fill Dead last week doing a 90-minute tribute set at the Daiquiri Deck in Siesta Key, Florida and told America that he saw Jerry Garcia live.

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

Ted Cruz finally took on Donald Trump this debate and did it much better than anyone else has managed to do date. Asked about an earlier comment that Trump’s got “New York values”, Cruz doubled down on the insult: “Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan, I’m just saying,” he said to applause.

Trump’s initial counter – that William F Buckley came out of New York – wasn’t the strongest, though his 9/11 answer is bound to carry more weight with voters.

Two points for Cruz; Trump one-half.

Updated

Kasich on keeping it cool:

In foreign policy, it’s strength, but you gotta be cool, and you gotta have a clear vision of where you want to go.

And here’s how Twitter sees the debate:

Ranked follower growth GOP candidates since #GOPDebate start:
1. @realDonaldTrump
2. @RandPaul
3. @tedcruz
4. @marcorubio
5. @ChrisChristie
Ranked follower growth all candidates since #GOPDebate start:
1. @realDonaldTrump
2. @RandPaul
3. @tedcruz
4. @BernieSanders
5. @HillaryClinton
Share of conversation (top 5 cands) in 1st hr of #GOPDebate:
Trump 33%
Cruz 25%
Carson 11%
Rubio & Bush 10%

Via Google: Cruz gaining traction with those last exchanges – in search traffic, at least.

Cruz hits Trump for 'New York values'

Bartiromo asks Cruz about Cruz’s dig at Trump for having “New York values”. What did he mean by that?

“I think most people know exactly what New York values are,” Cruz says. And then to Bartiromo:

You’re from New York, so you might not. ...Everyone understands that the values of New York City are socially liberal, pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, centered on money.

Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I’m just sayin.’

Trump replies: “Conservatives actually do come out of Manhattan, including William F Buckley and others... New York is a great place, it’s got great people, it’s got loving people,” Trump says.

Then he plays the 9/11 card:

When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely.

Even the smell of death, it was with us for months. And we rebuilt. ... That was a very insulting statement that Ted made.

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier

At least Rubio admitted that people are just buying more guns out of fear that a lame-duck president will confiscate all their firearms. Trump went full Heston (“guns don’t kill people, people kill people”) and Christie called the president a “petulant child”.

But with all the foot stomping and posturing, it was hard to know how they could tell the difference between a Republican debate and the president.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Cruz: 'the government could confiscate your guns'

On the guns issue, Cruz points out the next president could have multiple Supreme Court appointments.

“The government could confiscate your guns,” he warns.

Then he questions the fidelity of his rivals to the second amendment.

Unless you are clinically insane, that’s what you say in the primary... but people’s actions don’t always match their words.”

Christie: Obama a 'petulant child'

Christie takes the gun question. A relatively long discussion of the guns issue this evening, to the credit of Fox Business.

Christie takes his turn railing on about the importance of the second amendment. He says New Jersey has “made it easier to get a concealed carry permit.”

Great.

Then Christie calls Obama a “petulant child” for his use of executive actions. Last debate Christie called the president a “feckless weakling.” Good at insults: Chris Christie.

“We are gonna kick your rear end out of the White House!” he tells Obama, to whoops and cheers.

Fact-check, America hates current gun laws edition!

Bluster not enough for you? How about some facts from data editor Mona Chalabi?

Seeing as we’re discussing candidates’ views on guns right now (and Obama’s ‘dictatorship’ coming for everyone’s guns), let’s see what the US public as a whole thinks.

While it’s true that support for gun control is rising, so too is opposition. The latest polling numbers released from Gallup on Thursday show that 38% of Americans want stricter gun laws and 15% want less strict controls - both of those numbers are higher than they were in 2015.

Taking those numbers together, overall dissatisfaction with gun laws is at a 15-year high. That’s more likely to be felt by Democrats (75% of whom say they’re not happy with gun laws) than Republicans (54%), obviously.

Gun control
Gun control Photograph: Gallup

Here’s a home-cooked map if that’s easier to read:

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

Asked what the problem is with background checks, Jeb! boldly came out against the FBI: “We need to make sure the FBI does it’s job!”

It’s not the fact that these people who are shooting up churches and Planned Parenthood clinics should never have had access to firearms in the first place. No, no! The FBI should have anticipated the future.

He also managed to telegraph to voters what he actually wants them to hear out of this exchange: “I have an A+ rating from the NRA.” Got that guys?

Rubio: Obama wants to take your guns

Now Rubio. He tops Trump by repeating the conservative ghost story about Obama wanting to take Americans’ guns.

“I am convinced that if this president could take away every gun in America, he would,” Rubio says.

Then Rubio tops himself, by bringing Isis into it:

Isis and terrorists do not get their guns from a gun show... his immediate answer, before he even knows the facts, is gun control. Here’s a fact, we’re in a war with Isis.

Trump’s asked whether he thinks there’s a need for any restrictions of any kind on gun sales.

In reply, Trump dreams of heavily arming.... Parisians:

I’m a second amendment person. .. Even in Paris, if they had guns on the other side, going in the opposite direction, you wouldn’t have 130-plus people dead. [...]

The guns don’t pull the trigger, the people pull the trigger.

They’re back! Bush takes a question about guns, hooked on the massacre of nine in June in a Charleston church, by a perpetrator who passed a background check to buy guns.

Bush gives a graceful answer, and a serious one, praising governor Haley, and paying tribute to the members of the church who called for mercy and understanding after the massacre.

“The FBI made a mistake. The law requires a background check,” Bush says. He says that taking away rights is not the answer; enforcing the law is.

“The other issue is mental health. That’s a serious issue we could work on,” he says.

Fact-check, the tuition is too damn high edition!

Once more from data editor Mona Chalabi, with schooling:

Kasich’s references to rising college debt are indisputably correct. As this chart from the Wall Street Journal succinctly shows, the class of 2014 was the most indebted ever.

Class debt
Class debt Photograph: Wall Street Journal

This feels apt:

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

“Dr. Carson … what do you think of the notion that Hillary Clinton is an enabler of sexual misconduct.” We direct this question to you as someone who has strenuously insisted that he tried to stab someone to death.

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

Is there anything terrible a man can do that you can’t blame a woman for? (Though kudos, frankly, to Carson for noticing that commenters under internet news stories are often horrifying.)

Updated

Meanwhile, in Rand Paul world:

Break number two. We’re about 50 minutes in out of 120 ie two hours. Who’s winning?

Ben Carson is asked about whether Bill Clinton’s sexual transgressions are “fair game” and whether “Hillary Clinton is an enabler of sexual misconduct.”

Anything is fair game, he replies, but wait: “Is this America anymore?” Then he makes a rather moving mini-speech about “Our strength is our unity.”

He singles out Internet comments sections. “You go five comments down, and everybody is calling each other names.”

Not our comments section! Thanks, readers.

Update: fact check:

Updated

Fact-check, Trump's Scottish mother edition!

Here’s data editor Mona Chalabi on that birther moment: does Trump’s heritage in Scotland really make him disqualified for president?

trump golf course scotland
Trump at his golf course in the motherland of Scotland. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

We all knew that Trump was special, but the fact that his mother was born in Scotland makes him all the more unique. Of the 319 million people who live in the United States, 41 million were born abroad – of those, just 64,367 were born in Scotland according to the US Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey.

That means that 1 out of every 4,953 people in America could theoretically parent a Trump-like child.

Interesting, no?

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

Is there anyone who wouldn’t suck it up and take the vice presidential nomination if they had to? (Then again, Jeb Bush is unemployed.)

Still, with all the acrimony on-stage, the admissions from Bush, Christie and Cruz that they’d settle for second banana in (what-might-be-a) Trump administration in 2017 is like watching a bunch of one-time quarterbacks fight for the right to be the high school bully’s waterboy.

Kasich is talking about job-training for 50-year-olds who got laid off and are trying to start a second career.

The nature and tone of Kasich’s speech, its policy specificity, is of a different breed from what is being spoken all around him.

Bush and Carson both jump in to give what wish to be big-picture perspectives on the rather narrow arguments playing out on stage.

But it’s easy to ignore them. The kinetic candidates are Rubio, Christie, Trump and Cruz. For now.

Rubio attacks Christie

Rubio takes a question he ignores, in favor of a blistering attack on Governor Christie.

“We cannot afford to have a president of the United States that supports Common Core, like Chris Christie. Who supports gun control. Chris Christie wrote a check to Planned Parenthood!” Rubio says.

Rubio also mentions Christie supporting the nomination of Justice Sotomayor.

Christie denies it all. He says he never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood, and says he vetoed multiple gun control measures in New Jersey and that Common Core has been eliminated in New Jersey.

Update: fact check:

He says Rubio can talk and talk, but a governor like him has a record to hold him accountable.

Then Christie kills with kindness. “I like Marco Rubio, he’s a good guy” who would be better than Clinton, he says.

Updated

Trump: 'I will gladly accept the mantle of anger'

Next question, for Trump, about South Carolina governor Nikki Haley in her response to the State of the Union Tuesday warning against the “siren call of the angriest voices,” in clear reference to Trump.

“First of all, Nikki this afternoon said, I am a friend of hers,” Trump says. “I am a friend. We’re friends.”

But:

I’m very angry, because our country is being run horribly. I will gladly accept the mantle of anger.

Yes, I am angry. So when Nicky said that, I wasn’t offended. She said the truth.

Updated

Rubio jumps in: “I hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV.”

That gets laughs. The crowd are enjoying themselves.

Rubio keeps them hot by promising to repeal all Obama’s executive orders, repealing Obamacare and acting like a strong commander in chief.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

Ted Cruz did a fantastic job of laughing off the birther issue by doing the smug Reaganesque “well, there you go again…” laugh at it, and he went on to add that according to some birther-esque reasoning Trump would be excluded from running because of his mother’s naturalization.

It was clever and nimble and entirely Cruz-esque, but you can’t out-smug Trump. You just create a smug-off.

Trump clobbered Cruz by pushing the issue onto the Democrats, mentioning Wall Street Journal polls, using the audience against itself and then airily speculating about what would happen if he named Cruz his Vice-President.

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

The reaction in the Guardian US newsroom.

Updated

Trump to Cruz: 'you can't do that to the party'

Now Trump brags about his polls, and is booed. Then he warns that if Cruz beats the rest of the field, “I already know that the Democrats will sue.” He says:

If you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office. And you should go out and get a declaratory judgment.

Why is Trump raising the question now?

Now he’s doing a little bit better. He never had a chance. Now he’s doing a little bit better, he’s got probably a 4-5% chance.

Trump turns to Cruz:

There’s a big question mark on your head, and you can’t do that to the party,” Trump tells Cruz. “The Democrats are going to bring a lawsuit. And you have to have certainty.”

The crowd is restive. Hollers, boos.

Cruz gets cheers by saying that he’s spent his life arguing the Constitution and “I’m not going to take legal advice from Donald Trump.”

Donald Trump does not believe Ted Cruz was born on US soil. Where does he think he was born?

Cruz: not natural born?

Cruz stokes birther war: 'Trump would be disqualified'

Cruz gets the first Q off the break – and it’s about his Canadian birth! [To an American mother.]

Trump has called you not “natural-born,” as prescribed in the Constitution, Cruz is asked. Are you eligible?

“I’m glad we are focusing on the important topics of the evening,” Cruz begins. “Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this in every which way.

Since September, the Constitution hasn’t changed, but the poll numbers have. And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa. But the facts and the record here are really quite clear.

Then Cruz says that both McCain, born in Panama, and George Romney, Mitt’s father, were born in Mexico. He continues:

The birther theories that Donald is relying on say that you have to have two parents born on US soil. I would be disqualified, Marco Rubio would be, Bobby Jindal would be disqualified.

And Donald Trump would be disqualified.”

Because his mother was born in Scotland.

On the issue of citizenship, Donald, I’m not going to use your mother’s birth against you.”

An old Reagan line.

Trump: “Because it wouldn’t work.”

Updated

They’re back! Welcome back.

trump cruz republican debate
This guy ... took 17 minutes to get going. Photograph: Chris Keane/Reuters

The next commander-in-chief is on this stage, Chris Christie tells the audience. Yay! The Supermen!

Because all the men on this stage are super

First break! That 20 minutes went fast. Who’s winning? Everybody spoke. Tell us below the line!

Cruz: 'I made a paperwork error'

Cruz takes a question about the NY Times report on his failure to disclose a Goldman Sachs loan as a Senate candidate in 2012.

He hits it out of the park. He starts by trashing the Times. Then:

Unlike Hillary Clinton, I don’t have masses of money in the bank... my opponent in that race was worth over $200m.

The entire New York Times attack is that I disclosed it on one form... but not another.

I made a paperwork error... but if that’s the best hit the New York Times has got, they better go back to the well.”

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

Rubio came out angry early in the debate, declaring that Clinton would be a disaster when it comes to national security. “Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander in chief of the United States!” he said to loud applause: “When I am president of the United States we’re going to win this war on Isis!”

It’s a lot of anger and talk of winning from a guy who’s been relatively soft-spoken in debates thus far. Can Rubio out-Trump Trump? That seems to be the strategy.

Trump: refugees a Trojan Horse

Trump is asked about fearmongering over taking refugees from Syria and elsewhere.

“It’s not fear and terror, it’s reality,” Trump says. He makes the first reference to the attacks in Jakarta. He refers to San Bernardino and Paris.

You look around and you see what’s happening. And this is not the case... that’s not representative of what you have in that line of migration... that could be the great Trojan Horse.

He characterizes the refugee group, majority women and children, thusly: “Very few women, very few children. Strong, powerful men. Young.”

For the record, he was asked about this nice-looking guy:

Updated

Carson is asked about security threats. He immediately complains in the form of a joke about its having taken too long for him to get a question.

Then he picks up the Santorum thread about the electromagnetic pulse attack threat. EMP attack threats are the H-bomb attack threats of... this late week.

The audience applauds politely, although not vigorously, at all.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

Jeb! Bush said that Hillary Clinton would be “a national security mess”, who would send us down the path of “Iran, Benghazi, the Russian reset, Dodd-Frank”. I’m amazed he didn’t mention the national-security threat of Planned Parenthood and lesbians who wear wedding bands.

Rubio: 'Clinton is disqualified'

Rubio comes out guns blazing. “Hillary Clinton is disqualified for being the commander-in-chief of the United States!” he says.

Her sins, according to Rubio? “Someone who lies to those four families in Benghazi cannot be commander-in-chief of the United States.”

Rubio is about three times more fiery, passionate, and smoother-of-tongue than Bush. Maybe four times.

He closes with a big applause line. If “we capture [terrorists] alive,” he says, “they are getting a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

Chris Christie promised to make sure that Hillary Clinton “doesn’t get within 10 miles of the White House” when he’s president.

One problem? She owns a residence near the British Embassy in DC (as US news director David Taylor just noted), which Google Maps suggests is 2.3 miles from the White House. Whoops.

“Hillary Clinton would be a national security disaster,” Bush continues, in response to a follow-up. “She would be a national security mess.”

He points out the FBI has investigated Clinton’s emails. Then he unleashes his big line:

“If she gets elected, her first 100 days, instead of setting an agenda, she might be going back and forth between the White House and the courthouse. We need to stop that.”

And now, to Bush, for his take on the international crossroads.

Bush delivers a practiced, and yet unfortunately rather stumbling, response. “The idea that somehow we’re better off today than the day that Obama was elected president, is simply an alternative universe,” he says.

“We’re in a much difficult – we’re in a much different position than we should be.”

Then he says: “terrorism is on the run.”

Doesn’t make much sense.

Also, too:

Updated

Christie: State of Union was 'story time with Barack Obama'

Now to Christie: How would you use the military to restore order?

Christie says he’s grateful for the question’s dark view of world affairs, because “on Tuesday night I watched story time with Barack Obama, and it sounded like everything in the world was going amazing, you know?”

Whistles and applause.

Christie says to fix it, the US needs to strengthen allegiance and keep our word with allies. And “we have to talk to adversaries and make sure they understand the limits of our patience.”

Here’s my warning to everybody: if you’re worried about the world being on fire... about keeping your homes and families safe and secure, you cannot give Hillary Clinton a third term of Barack Obama’s leadership.”

Updated

As Fox says “the world is on fire”, here’s an early reality check from data editor Mona Chalabi, who’ll be catching candidates’ pants on fire all night:

Some quick context on jobs, which are the opening topic for the Republican debate.

The Obama presidency has had an impressive 63 consecutive months of job growth, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But wages haven’t shown the same signs of healthy improvement:

Monthly job growth

Kasich gets the second question! He wins.

The Ohio governor starts rattling off his “simple formula” for creating jobs. Less regulation, more tax cuts and fiscal discipline, is the formula. “When you have fiscal discipline, you see the job creators begin to get very comfortable that they can invest,” Kasich says.

Not a particularly exciting answer, à la Cruz, but a solid answer.

From US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

Senator Ted Cruz’s comments that nations should feel the fury (i.e., bombs) of the US if they capture our troops gave me a sudden flashback to 2008:

An oldie but Republican goodie.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

Ted Cruz is like a super-charged V-8 that can go from 0-to-Iran in less than 30 seconds. Given the glower, you’d think that all 10 of the American sailors were dead, as opposed to reasonably interdicted while slipping up in Iranian territorial waters and about to be on their way home.

First Q: Jobs and growth. The red cape is a quote from Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday, touting the strength of the American economy.

Let’s watch the bulls charge. Cruz gets the question first.

Cruz wants to talk about something else – the US sailors taken captive briefly in Iran.

“In that State of the Union, President Obama didn’t so much as mention the sailors captured in Iran,” Cruz says.

But take heart: “The next commander in chief is standing on this stage.” And if he’s elected, Cruz says, no member of the armed services will be forced to their knees without the perpetrator feeling the full wrath of America.

Guess what? That’s a strong applause line.

Here we go. There’s applause in the arena. There’s Neil Cavuto, who’s hosting with Maria Bartiromo. Cavuto falls into an explanation of the criteria for inclusion on the stage tonight (Carly Fiorina and Rand Paul didn’t make it).

The crows is applauding the candidates. We’ve met them all. Weak applause, notably, for Kasich.

Sabrina has a close eye on Rubio:

The candidates are on stage. The Star Spangled Banner has been sung. It can only mean one thing: time for Fox Business to run its cheesy pre-produced promo.

The aerial shots of Charleston are nice, though.

It's debate time, folks!

If you’re just joining us, welcome (!) to our live-wire coverage of the sixth Republican presidential debate. Reporters Ed Pilkington and Ben Jacobs are on the ground for us tonight in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Fault lines of disagreement, nay, arguments that have opened in the last week include a fight between Donald Trump and Texas senator Ted Cruz over Cruz’s eligibility to be president; over Cruz’s previously undisclosed loan from Goldman Sachs to kickstart his 2012 Senate campaign; and a spat between senator Marco Rubio and governor Chris Christie over Christie’s purported proximity to Barack Obama.

It’s the establishment versus the insurgents, and it is on.

The field is narrowing, and the candidates will be doing everything they can tonight to keep it from narrowing them into oblivion. It’s another existential night for Jeb Bush, a night for Ben Carson to try to stop his skid – and a night for John Kasich to keep up his lonely call for party sanity.

Let’s go! Here are the candidates taking part in the main debate at 9pm:

  • Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida
  • Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon
  • Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey
  • Ted Cruz, US senator from Texas
  • John Kasich, governor of Ohio
  • Marco Rubio, US senator from Florida
  • Donald Trump, real estate developer and reality show star

We’ve got a cast of analysts, political reporters and really funny columnists here and across the US. You can watch a livestream here. But stick with us right here, world. You won’t regret it.

Updated

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

Watching Reince Priebus try to fire up a crowd is like watching a bowl of oatmeal try to start a gang fight.

Rand Paul is doing everything he can to steal attention tonight from the debate he’s not in. In past debates he has pressed the point that he is the only candidate who would significantly cut federal spending. With his platform of eliminating the department of education, repealing the IRS tax code and avoiding new wars overseas – and his relative ideological seriousness on the issue of the debt – he has a strong case to make.

We’d call it up for debate – except not tonight.

Next up on our Bowie debate playlist... The Man Who Sold The World, from the album of the same name. It could almost have been written as a tribute to Donald Trump’s business prowess.

Except it wasn’t.

An even better song than “Freedom’s Call”

Tom mentioned this at the beginning but my god it’s worth revisiting. The events in the video below occurred on Wednesday at a Donald Trump rally in Penascola, Florida.

Music! Music! Music!


You are witnessing a performance by USA Freedom Kids, a girl band who love – in this order, Donald Trump, America, and Freedom. They are performing “Freedom’s Call”, which is a song venerating Donald Trump. Specifically his bid to make America great (again).

USA Freedom Kids was established by a maniac called Jeff Popick. Popick wrote the song. Here is a sample of the lyrics.

Freedom’s on our shoulders, USA!

Enemies of freedom, face the music (c’mon boys, take them down!)

President Donald Trump knows how to make America great.

The irony of a song supposedly about freedom and western values having been written and performed in a manner usually reserved for North Korean-style venerations of Kim Jong-Un is beautiful. Let the music play!

How much time is left till this next debate, anyway?

(h/t: @scottbix)

Another potential smackdown that’s brewing tonight: Florida senator Marco Rubio versus New Jersey governor Chris Christie. The two appear competitive in the mainstream party lane in New Hampshire and perhaps beyond, as Trump and Cruz do battle for the populous fringes.

A Rubio super PAC this week began airing an attack on Christie accusing the governor of – gasp! – being buddies with Barack Obama:

If Trump brings his attack on Cruz’s eligibility to be president onto the debate stage tonight, we can all expect Cruz, the former Texas solicitor who went 5-4 as a litigator before the Supreme Court, to be ready with a strong answer.

But who’s right here? The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs looked into it last weekend, and found that the debate is fraught:

The legal and constitutional issues around qualification for the presidency on grounds of US citizenship are “murky and unsettled”, according to the scholar cited by Donald Trump in his recent attacks on Ted Cruz.

Trump has sought to cast doubt on whether the senator, who was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, is a “natural-born US citizen”. In doing so he has referred to the work and words of Laurence Tribe, perhaps the most respected liberal law professor in the country.

Tribe taught both Cruz and Barack Obama at Harvard Law School. He also advised Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount and has advised Obama’s campaign organisation.

“Despite Sen[ator] Cruz’s repeated statements that the legal/constitutional issues around whether he’s a natural-born citizen are clear and settled,” he told the Guardian by email, “the truth is that they’re murky and unsettled.”

Read the full piece here:

From the comments

We now have reader reactions to the undercard debate – thanks for joining the discussion! Here’s a sampling:

User avatar for WarlockScott

Who won on the undercard?
Well for the GOP base Fiorina probably, smoother, populist plus more Clinton insults per question even if everything she said was at odds with the truth+her background
Who won for everyone that doesn't own a "Don't tread on me" shirt and 12 AR-15's?
Sanders/Clinton... at least imo anyway

User avatar for NorristheTramp

Listening to them is like listening to a French tv show. I think I have an idea of what they're getting at then...no...none of it makes any sense again.

And inre: the earlier SNAFU with the comments being turned off...

User avatar for MadKatFever

Dear Guardian,
Perhaps were turned on, but no one cared to read about this debate!

From camera to camera to camera: the life of a presidential candidate.

The Hillary Clinton campaign, meanwhile, apparently has decided that the Bernie Sanders ad we wrote about earlier was enough of an attack to warrant counter-attack:

Speaking of the media, it may or may not be a conspiracy – but whatever the case, the nightly network television newscasts in 2015 conferred on Trump “almost a third of all coverage (327 mins or 32%), more than the entire Democratic contest combined,” according to respected industry blog the Tyndall report, which adds:

During 2015, Campaign 2016 logged more than 17 hours of coverage on the broadcast networks’ weekday nightly newscasts [...]

The other GOP candidates, in order of prominence, were Jeb Bush (57 mins), Ben Carson (57), Marco Rubio (22).

(h/t: @samthielman)

Speaking of fundraising, Rand Paul is at it tonight, too, calling his exclusion from tonight’s main debate a media conspiracy to silence him akin to what he says was a similar conspiracy to silence his father, the Texas representative and two-time presidential contender Ron Paul.

Trump has telegraphed a punch he could throw at Cruz tonight, picking up on a New York Times report that report that Cruz did not report a significant loan from Goldman Sachs, his wife’s employer, used to kickstart his 2012 Senate campaign.

In textbook concern-troll mode, Trump told Bloomberg News that he hopes “nice guy” Cruz “solves” the Goldman loan disclosure issue.

Here’s how Cruz is handling the revelation so far: he’s raising money off what he portrays as a dastardly attack by the reviled New York Times.

He hit me first!
He hit me first! Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The main debate is just around the corner – in 75 minutes. What to expect? Guardian political reporters Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui foresee a Tale of Two Fights:

Thursday’s Republican presidential debate in Charleston is shaping up as two different battles. The first will be between the field’s two frontrunners, New York businessman Donald Trump and Texas senator Ted Cruz, to determine who will hold top dog status just three weeks before the Iowa caucus, the first electoral test of the 2016 election.

The second will be between the remaining five candidates on the main stage as they try to muscle their way into the spotlight.

Cruz had long clinched Trump tight in a boxer’s move that was half an embrace and half an attempt to keep the real estate mogul from throwing a clean punch, but he has abruptly changed tone in recent days.

Read the full piece here:

Well that sure was a lot of fun. Now, as we prepare for the grown-ups debate, how about this track: Telling Lies, from Bowie’s 20th studio album, Earthling.

Telling Lies is the exact opposite of what all tonight’s debaters will be doing.

Ben Jacobs is in North Charleston, and he writes:

The undercard Republican debate was a lot like a night out at Arby’s. The three candidates served up plenty of red meat that no one really wants to eat.

During the one-hour debate, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum would have pleased the GOP base – but without the kind of breakout moment they might need to make it to the main stage in future.

Fiorina returned her normal debate strategy of ignoring her Republican rivals and acting as if she is running against Hillary Clinton. In her opening statement, she took a clear shot, saying: “Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband.” She went on to attack Clinton over the scandal involving her email server.

Fiorina also attacked another favorite target, Donald Trump, whom she said was having “a bromance with Vladimir Putin”. She did offer occasional strands of policy, including calling for a ban on the US admitting any refugees at all.

Mike Huckabee made his usual folksy remarks, calling Afghanistan “land of the Flintstones, desolate, barren and primitive”. He also hit Barack Obama for being overly concerned about Muslims, saying the president was “more interested in protecting the image of Islam … than protecting us.”

Huckabee also said that three times as many hate crimes in the US are committed against Jews than against Muslims, and hit favorite conservative targets like Fast and Furious, the botched Department of Justice operation that ended up shipping weapons to Mexican drugs cartels. He also had an interesting view on European integration, describing the European Union as “a failure”.

Perhaps the best received of the three was Santorum, who repeatedly referenced the Citadel, the military college in Charleston that two of his sons attend. While Santorum struggled through much of the early part of the debate, choosing for instance to discuss the threat of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US – a WMD which features in the plot of the James Bond movie Goldeneye – he gained momentum in his closing statement.

There, Santorum described himself to applause as “a fighter” and touted his repeated victories against “the Clinton Machine”.

Santorum did so by taking extra time, joking “he was going to take some time from Rand Paul” who was boycotting the undercard debate because he felt he did not deserve to be relegated to it.

It was entirely possible, however, that by skipping this debate and doing a media blitz instead, Paul may have done himself and his struggling campaign some good.

As someone in the Kentucky senator’s orbit told the Guardian after the debate: “I really regret not doing that debate … NOT.”

This is what it’s like to be inside Donald Trump’s head. Not as bad as one might have thought?

Gratitude to Google for sharing this cool 360-degree view from Trump’s lectern. Play away!

Updated

The three undercard candidates were asked a rare question for GOP debates about gun violence, and instantly swatted it away, reports Ed Pilkington from North Charleston:

The moderator’s reference to polls that show even Republican gun owners favor universal background checks - 79% of them in a recent Pew Research Center survey - was booed by the TV audience, and the only new policy that Carly Fiorina could offer was that existing laws should be enforced.

Such a cursory attitude to the epidemic of gun deaths from both those on the stage and in the crowd was more than disappointing, it was close to insulting. About 15 minutes’ drive from the conference center where tonight’s debates are being held is the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, where nine people at a Bible studies class were gunned down by a white supremacist last June.

From the comments

We apologize – we realize that the comments were not turned on earlier. They are now. Have at it!

None of you has declared a winner of the undercard debate. But this call for a question for Cruz about climate change caught our eye:

User avatar for ID9766495

Of course it won't even be raised as an issue, but someone should ask Cruz in particular about his truly pathetic dishonesty on global warming - exposed yet again on this great little video (although the whole clown car are similarly guilty of basic science denial)

Paul to hold virtual town hall during debate

Rand Paul, the Kentucky senator who boycotted the undercard debate after being excluded from the main debate on the weakness of his poll numbers, will be holding an event to compete with the debate. He’s at Twitter headquarters for a virtual town hall:

Updated

Are you watching this on Fox Business? Lou Dobbs, the angry anchor, is interviewing Rick Santorum. Controversial Dobbs makeup situation there. He looks like Mary Poppins’ Bert.

Why are these three still running for president?

Only two hours until the main event! Let’s hear it below the line, please.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

All these so-called second-tier candidates did a good job: they aptly covered both how Iran is a daily, imminent existential threat to America, as is not alleviating the historical near-low tax burdens on the wealthy.

I have no idea why they weren’t on the main stage. There isn’t an iota of difference between them and any of the frauds leading the pack.

Undercard debate wraps

We missed the start of Huckabee’s closing statement because we were Googling “Rick Santorum.” We heard him say something about slaughtered babies. Now he is telling a story about a 100-year old. The crowd applauds.

Now Fiorina: My husband Frank. “My eye candy.” “You cannot wait to see the debate between me and Hillary Clinton. You will pay to see that fight.” Illegal immigration has been a problem for decades. Etc etc. “I ask you to stand with me, fight with me, vote for me. Citizens, it is time to take our future back.” She keeps calling everyone “citizens,” as if discoursing in the agora.

That’s it! They’re done. Who won? Who cares? Talk to us in the comments and we’ll feature whatever debate and wit that might break out here in the blog.

Updated

Santorum: 'Google "Rick Santorum"'

They’re back! Concluding statements.

Santorum: My sons go to the Citadel [military academy in Charleston]. America is frustrated. America needs a winner. Who can take on Hillary Clinton. I’ve taken on Hillary Clinton on abortion. Then he says: “Go Google Rick Santorum and Hillary Clinton.”

Um.

Then Santorum gets off a real actual joke.

“I know I’m out of time, but I’m going to take some of Rand Paul’s time here for a sec!” he says. Paul has boycotted the undercard debate after failing to make the main event.

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

The GOP hates government overreach except when it comes to encouraging “family formation”. Asked by a moderator whether the government should do anything about the fact that 40% of babies are born to (gasp!) single moms. Santorum was quick to jump with a heteronormative prescription to somehow give “every child its birthright, which is a mom and a dad who loves them”.

(And, yes, that was a dig on same-sex families, too.)

Fact-check! Yes, the middle class really IS shrinking

Data editor Mona Chalabi says believe it:

It might sound strange to hear someone say, as many Republicans will tonight and already have at the undercard debate, that the middle class is shrinking. (I’ve already heard some shrieks here at Guardian US HQ from colleagues who think the middle class is inherently a relative phenomenon.) But from a technical perspective, this can be true.

Pew Research Center defines the middle tier as “those living in households with an annual income that is 67% to 200% of the national median”. Because income inequality has risen in America, more and more people fall at either extreme of that. And so the middle is, indeed, shrinking:

Middle class US

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier

Just a quick gut check of how Rick Santorum’s insistence that ending divorce and single parent families is a way to improve children’s lives will play with the base... States that tend to lean Democratic in national contests have the lowest rates of divorce and teen pregnancy. But I guess there are plenty of self-loathing Republicans.

Whoa they are sneaking a third break into the hour. Not much of the hour left. 7 minutes by our watch. Anyway who’s winning now? [Does it matter who’s ‘winning’ this thing?]

Santorum’s back. Not much of a debate so far. Just a series of statements.

Santorum is making a statement about single-parent families and the low likelihood that children raised by a single parent will join the ranks of America’s richest. He speaks at about double the decibels of the other two. Projecting passion.

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier

Carly Fiorina, the former CEO, is calling for the entirely of the US tax code – personal and business, apparently, as she was speaking of small businesses – to be cut down to three pages.

Given that some of the most vociferous lobbying in favor of a complex tax code comes from large corporations (like the one of which she was CEO), all of which use those 72,000 pages in order to lower their taxes below what any reasonable American voter thinks they ought to have to pay, one suspects that it’s not a socialist initiative to make the tax code more complicated; it’s an inherently capitalist one.

Huckabee now riffs on the dire straits facing most Americans. He blames the tax code. “I really believe it’s time to do something bold,” he says. He supports an end to the payroll tax.

Then he helpfully boils his tax philosophy down: You reward good behavior, and you punish bad behavior.

That’s how I raised kids. That’s how I trained our dogs.

Next Q: how would you strengthen the middle class?

Fiorina blames the “professional political class” and the tax code. And big government. She calls for boosting small businesses and new business.

They’re back! Live from North Charleston.

Hello. There’s a slim chance that either this or the main debate tonight might prove either annoying or frustrating. So we’ll be peppering in some David Bowie song titles, just to lighten things up.

Here’s Absolute Beginners. It’s about love, I think. And these three candidates in the undercard debate all love America. Also, their standing in the polls is suggestive of them being beginners. Finally, the first line of the song is: “I’ve nothing much to offer.”

I’ll be back later.

Updated

Second break! Forty minutes in. Who’s winning? Santorum is talking a lot. Huckabee is agile as usual. Fiorina is on attack against Clinton and Trump.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

Rick Santorum is very worried about the EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) attack from an atmospheric detonation of a nuclear weapon. We could lose the grid! “Cars stop! Planes fall out of the sky! And this president has done nothing.”

The multiple nukes from the massive trans-Atlantic Iranian Air Force sound really scary. Of course, that suggests that they would not use their sharks with frickin’ lasers, warp drives, transporters or drop their Tsar Bombs either.

They might just be ill-tempered sea bass.

Updated

Huckabee is asked how the government can cut the debt without shaving entitlement programs.

Huckabee always defends Social Security, and he does so now. He says it’s a bad idea to raise the eligibility age. He says with 4% growth, Social Security and Medicare could be fully funded. He says it’s a myth to say Social Security pays seniors too much.

Sounds like a Democrat.

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

Hide your guns hide your wife: Mike Huckabee is worried because Obama announced very incremental new guns policy that essentially amount to a clarification of existing law. That means, clearly, that the president is coming for your guns.

Neve rmind that his response doesn’t make any sense, Huckabee has a pithy non sequitur! “Now the latest is, if you like your gun you can keep it!”

See how this new gun policy relates to The Affordable Care Act and health insurance? Me neither.

Now Santorum is talking about something he knows more about. “Nobody’s focused on the people who are struggling the most in America today,” he says.

Then he calls for deporting undocumented migrants to protect American workers.

“We need to be the party that stands for the American worker. And that means if we need to send people back, we send people back.”

He says it would be a good way to spread US ideals, to send US-educated youths home to Central America. He said just that, he did.

Now Santorum is riffing about the risk of an electromagnetic pulse attack triggered by a nuclear explosion in our upper atmosphere. He says Iran is trying to do that right now.

[Except they don’t have a nuke or a missile that can shoot that far.-ed]

Santorum has a way – his karate chop gestures, his adamancy of tone, his puffed chest – of sounding authoritative while spouting, call it, debatables.

It’s a bit uncanny to hear Huckabee talk about what kind of president he would be. He’s still running for president, it makes you think.

Huckabee is asked about waiving visas requirements for some refugee groups, which is an emergency practice allowing intervention in crisis. Huckabee is firmly against the practice.

Then perhaps the biggest applause line of the night yet:

We have a president who seems to be more interested in protecting the reputation and image of Islam than he is in protecting us.”

Then Huckabee starts talking about the Jews.

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

America’s new enemy number one isn’t the media, it’s polling data. When a moderator stated that Americans generally favor background checks, the audience booed and Carly Fiorina jumped in with a sarcastic: “And we all believe the polls don’t we?”

That is perhaps a sore point for Fiorina who’s been relegated to the undercard debate based on a evil polling lies.

Her solution, meanwhild, for reigning in public shootings? “We don’t prosecute enough!” That’ll do it.

Huckabee: guns more difficult to buy than salad

Huckabee is asked about Obama’s executive actions on gun control, which the former governor has called “completely insane.”

He’s asked about how to protect innocents in cities like Charleston by preventing guns from falling in the hands of criminals.

Huckabee, expertly, manages to bring up Fast and Furious, the guns walking scandal in which a border agent was killed.

“I purchase guns, and I can assure you that it is much more difficult to purchase a firearm than it is to get the ingredients for a salad at the supermarket.”

That’s reassuring.

Then Huckabee blames mass shootings on gun-free zones, the theory being that the good guys weren’t armed at those sites and so couldn’t stop the massacre.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

If someone tried to start the wave in this room, it would look like Morse code.

Donald Trump definitely knows how to do the wave.

Gun violence. The question is about national polls that show the overwhelming majority of Americans, including Republicans, are in favor of universal background checks for gun sales.

The question is booed!

“Not in this room,” Santorum blurts.

“We believe the poll data all the time, don’t we?” Fiorina says, sarcastically. She says that Obama is violating the Constitution with executive actions to tighten restrictions on gun sales.

“We need to enforce the laws we have,” she says.

Then she gives a lecture on tech concluding with “Mrs Clinton, you cannot wipe a server with a towel.” She’s used the line before. She’s applauded anyway.

Updated

From Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier:

In response to a question about forcing tech companies to help the government surveil people, conservative former Senator Rick Santorum said, “If we were doing a better job in government, we wouldn’t need the private sector.”

I’m pretty sure that conservatives are supposed to believe the opposite.

They’re back! Santorum’s asked about Obama’s rather fruitless attempts to get tech companies to cooperate to surveil and silence terrorists.

Should Facebook and Twitter [no Google, a debate sponsor – duly noted] be required by law to be more actively engaged in fighting terror?

Santorum dodges. He says if the government were doing a better job, “we wouldn’t need the private sector.”

“We don’t have people who are thinking about offense. We don’t have warfighters,” he says. “We have technologists.”

He calls for more fierce retaliation against cyber-attacks.

From Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves:

Carly Fiorina has denounced Donald Trump’s “bromance” with Putin so we officially need a new word. The term has typically been deployed to describe the relationship between Ted Cruz and the Donald, but now that the vocabulary has descended into GOP debate lingo, self-respecting reporters need to move on. Guardian US opinion editor Megan Carpentier suggests Briss (bro kiss). But leave your suggestions in the comments.

Break! That went quick. We’re 20 minutes in. Who’s most awesome so far?

Fiorina accuses Trump of 'bromance' with Putin

Fiorina’s asked whether she would ally with Russia to fight Isis.

“Despite Donald Trump’s bromance with Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Putin and Russia are our adversary,” she says.

She says “we cannot outsource leadership in the Middle East.”

That’d be a ‘No’, apparently.

Updated

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

Carly Fiorina invoked “The Geneva Convention” in relation to the members of the American Navy who were apparently in less than 24 hours of dire peril after very probably creeping around on some CIA-creep mission around Iran. Anyway, I wasn’t told that the Republican Party was going to acknowledge that the Geneva Convention exists or is valid. Can you liquefy it and put it down a Guantanamo detainee’s throat?

Fiorina is asked about the sexual assault attacks on women in Cologne, Germany, at New Year’s. Many men arrested in the attacks are from the Middle East with asylum status in Germany.

“We cannot allow refugees to enter this country, unless we can accurately [vet] them,” she says. “And therefore we should not allow refugees to enter this country.”

Updated

Huckabee is asked about Afghanistan. “When I went to Afghanistan, I saw something that looked like the land of the Flintstones,” he says.

#analysis

Wooly mammoth fountain? Dinosaur lawn mower? Doesn’t look that bad.
Wooly mammoth fountain? Dinosaur lawn mower? Doesn’t look that bad. Photograph: Everett Collection / Rex Features

Santorum is asked about the Iran deal. It “needs to be torn up on the first day in office of the next president,” he says. He says Iran has “already torn it up” by launching ballistic missiles.

“There are 50 some Citadel cadets in this audience tonight,” he says. He asks them to stand.

Here’s what I want to tell them: Whether you’re watching [the Michael Bay Benghazi movie] or the [video of US sailors captive in Iran], if you choose to serve this country, I will have your back. I will not let America be trampled on any more by these radical jihadists.

From Guardian US columnist Jeb Lund:

The entire story of the Republican Kiddie Table Debate is basically the Simpsons Lie Detector Test scene.

The Siiiiimp-sons!

Next question is on world “chaos.” The Middle East, North Korea, Afghanistan. How do the candidates see America’s role in the world today?

Fiorina: America must lead. The Obama team refuses to lead, or to respond when provoked. Then she hits Clinton on Benghazi. “When you do not say the USA will retaliate for that attack, terrorists assume it’s open season. We have refused to respond to every provocation.”

Fiorina says Obama should have brought up the brief captive -taking by Iran of US sailors this week. She says weak responses invite further attacks.

“I will be a commander-in-chief who will lead,” she says. Applause and some whoops. The crowd seems happy to be there.

Huckabee takes the same question, where’s the country. He says people are overworked and can’t make ends meet.

“As a result, there are a lot of people who are hurting today. I wish the president knew more of them,” he might change his policies, Huckabee says.

Santorum says that if Obama listened to Democrats he would hear lots of complaints about the economy. He comes this close to making that work as an actual moment of wit.

Then Santorum riffs on manufacturing jobs, the central theme of his candidacy. He says Obama is driving jobs offshore by making global climate change his “number one priority.”

Fiorina: 'unlike [Clinton], I was spending time with my husband'

The candidates are asked to describe where they see the country right now. Fiorina goes first. She says she’s not a political insider.

Then Fiorina drops a rather nasty bomb on Hillary Clinton, referring to potential faults in her marriage. Fiorina says that she is not a politician and took time off after her tech CEO job.

And:

Unlike another woman in this race, I actually was spending time with my husband.

Fiorina closes by accusing Trump and his ilk buying off Clinton and her ilk.

Updated

The moderators say welcome. This debate will last one hour. The moderators are introducing the candidates. Fiorina, Huckabee, Santorum. Huckabee’s Fiorina’s in the middle. All three smile. They seem glad to be there. Unlike bird-flipping Rand Paul.

Updated

Undercard debate begins

Hey there they are! The Three Musketeers / Three Stooges / Destiny’s Child debate is about to begin. The candidates have arrived onstage:

  • Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard
  • Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and media personality
  • Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania

The media filing room is filling up ahead of the early undercard debate, reports Ed Pilkington from the scene:

Google, which is organizing tonight’s debates along with Fox Business network, has decked out the hall in a style that is, well, unmistakably Google.

The room has a definite West Coast feel to it, with cactuses lining the walls, and a barista offering reporters a choice between cappuccino and flat white (when asked to define the difference, he admitted he couldn’t say).

The filing desks, in bare pine wood, and the brightly colored carpet makes you feel like you’re sitting in a kindergarten class. Appropriately so, perhaps.

For a picture, check out this earlier dispatch from North Charleston.

Followers of fashion are in for a real treat this January. Because Ben Carson’s team is having a Ben Carson-clothing fire sale!

[The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports.]

All your favorite Ben Carson-branded items are being sold “at cost”. Like, really, really cheap.

$9.99 (down from $20) for a long-sleeved t-shirt. $19.99 (down from $40) for a hoodie.

ben carson t-shirt
Available now at low, low price Photograph: Ben Carson online store/bencarson.com

You’d be forgiven for thinking this means no one has been buying Ben Carson clothing.

But you’d be wrong. His team says it is actually because it has been too warm for people to wear long-sleeved t-shirts.

We thought with the winter weather approaching that all Ben Carson supporters would love to have a long sleeve t-shirt or zippered hoodie, but little did we know that temperatures would be warmer than normal in many parts of the country. As a result, we ordered too many and need to need to move them out!

Whether you believe that or not (and it does seem hard to believe, given short-sleeved t-shirts are also included in the sale) if you want to walk around with the words “Ben” and “Carson” on your clothes then get over to the Ben Carson online store right now!

Or you could just buy the t-shirts and try and bleach off the branding. Your choice.

Trump up in new national poll

Let’s have a glance at the polls, shall we? Here’s a new one:

In prospective head-to-head contests in the same poll, Cruz beats Trump 51-43%, and Trump beats Rubio 52-45%.

Now this is a national poll, and as you may have heard, the primaries play out state by state, not nationally. In Real Clear Politics’ polling averages, Trump is up by 16 points nationally, but only .4% ahead of Cruz in Iowa. Trump leads Cruz by 17 points in the averages out of New Hampshire, however.

Unlike Carson’s signs, Trump’s signs are each held by personal attendants.
Unlike Carson’s signs, Trump’s signs are each held by personal attendants. Photograph: Randall Hill/Reuters

What’s the upshot? Trump has build on his national lead – but wait three weeks. Iowa votes 1 Feb, New Hampshire votes on 9 Feb and it’s off to the races from there.

Updated

The Ben Carson campaign suffered a blow with just hours to go until the debate, when his finance chairman, Dean Parker, resigned, reportedly over arguments with others in the campaign and controversy about how the money was being spent.

For example: Parker was paying himself $20,000 a month, Politico reports. But hey, it’s a high-stress job.

A snowbound, manure-or-mud-splattered Carson sign in New Hampshire. Get it
A snowbound, manure-or-mud-splattered Carson sign in New Hampshire. Get it Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP

Deeply non-trivial point of trivia: Ben Carson made a cameo appearance in Stuck on You, the 2003 screwball comedy starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined adult twins.

Talk about spin room amirite. But this is cool: If you click on the left side of this picture, hold the button down and swipe right quickly, it looks like Guardian chief reporter Ed Pilkington, who is in North Charleston covering the debate for us tonight, is dancing around you like a caffeinated Cossack.

Google is sponsoring the spin room / media filing center tonight, which is why it all looks so flash. We’ll be featuring debate analytics from Google tonight.

Updated

Just about 20 minutes to go until the advertised start to the undercard debate – but be warned: these advertised start times have had a way, in past debates, of bearing no actual relation to actual start times. At least when it’s CNN.

Trump camp tried to kick rivals off Illinois ballot

Dirty pool, old man. Donald Trump’s campaign tried to get his rival Republicans kicked off the ballot in Illinois – but the attempt failed when his state chair failed to bring duplicate copies of the required forms, Guardian political reporter Ben Jacobs reports:

The Guardian has learned that on Wednesday, the last day for candidates to object to signatures submitted by rival campaigns to get on the ballot, chair Kent Gray showed up at the Illinois board of elections a few minutes before it closed.

Illinois has some of the toughest ballot access laws in the country, and qualifying for the ballot requires gathering a different number of signatures in each of the state’s 18 congressional districts. Candidates often stumble trying to fulfill the state’s requirements; conservative challenger Rick Santorum faced major obstacles in 2012.

Read the full piece here.

Clinton camp 'surprised' at 'negative' Sanders ad

First, some news from the Democratic race. As Republicans prepare to take the stage in North Charleston, Hillary Clinton’s campaign engaged in its own debate with the media over what constitutes an attack ad, writes Guardian political reporter Sabrina Siddiqui:

The Democratic frontrunner’s campaign organized a press conference call with reporters on Thursday, following the release of a new ad by the Bernie Sanders campaign that it deemed to be “negative”. Recalling Sanders’ pledge not to run negative advertising, Clinton’s campaign was somewhat outraged by what they said was an obvious change in tone.

“We were very surprised today to see that Bernie Sanders launched a negative television advertisement against Hillary,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said.

Campaign strategist Joel Benenson chimed in that the ad “does something that [Sanders] so proudly said he wouldn’t do”.

The ad itself is, by most accounts, rather mild. It features Sanders, a senator from Vermont, speaking straight-to-camera and painting a contrast between “two Democratic visions” for regulating Wall Street.

“One says it’s OK to take millions from big banks and then tell them what to do. My plan – break up the big banks, close the tax loopholes and make them pay their fair share,” Sanders says.

At no point does he mention Clinton by name, nor does the ad feature an image of the former secretary of state.

Reporters pressed the Clinton campaign several times during the call on whether they truly felt the ad was “negative”, to which both Mook and Benenson reiterated that it violated, in their view, Sanders’ vow not to run attack ads.

Asked if the Clinton campaign would respond in kind, they said they would “wait and see what Senator Sanders does”.

The primary fight between the two campaigns has grown increasingly heated in recent weeks, as Clinton and Sanders remain locked in a competitive race in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Clinton’s campaign has aggressively attacked Sanders over his record on gun control and released a new ad itself drawing a contrast on the issue. Clinton similarly speaks to the camera and, while not invoking Sanders’ name, says it’s “time to pick a side” between the gun lobby and those standing up against it.

Updated

Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the sixth – has it really only been six? – Republican presidential debate. The field’s getting smaller, the stakes are getting higher and the barbs are getting sharper. Neckties haven’t changed much.

Tonight we’re in North Charleston, South Carolina!

On the scene at the North Charleston Coliseum and Performing Arts Center for the Guardian are chief reporter Ed Pilkington and political reporter Ben Jacobs. They’ll stop by in a bit.

The stage will look a little different tonight from the last time the Republicans met, a month ago now. Neither senator Rand Paul nor former tech executive Carly Fiorina made the cut for this evening’s debate, under rules determined by host network Fox Business.

Here’s what Paul thinks about that:

With the candidates in North Charleston, where Walter Scott was killed running away from a police officer who had pulled him over for a non-functioning taillight, criminal justice reform and gun violence are bound to be among the issues up for discussion. Also, too: the economy, immigration, national security and FREEDOM, probably.

Viewers hoping for fireworks can take courage from the beef that developed this week between rich guy Donald Trump and Texas senator Ted Cruz, formerly bosom intimates. Trump said Cruz might not be eligible for the presidency because he, Cruz, was born in Canada. Cruz retorted that Trump “embodies New York values.” (What, like ‘walk left, stand right’?)

In the interest of getting oriented, you will recall from the last Republican debate, in Las Vegas, that Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio repeatedly clashed over immigration and government surveillance, scion Jeb Bush attacked Donald Trump (“chaos candidate”), and Trump botched a question about the nuclear triad.

Tonight’s going to be even more exciting. Have you seen this?

Boring details

Time: The kiddie table / undercard debate starts at 6pm ET, the main event at 9pm.

Moderators: They’ve done so many of these, they’re starting to recycle moderators. Hosting tonight’s main event will be Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo. The JV refs are Trish Regan and Sandra Smith. All four worked the 10 November debate in Milwaukee.

Here are the candidates taking part in the main debate at 9pm:

  • Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida
  • Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon
  • Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey
  • Ted Cruz, US senator from Texas
  • John Kasich, governor of Ohio
  • Marco Rubio, US senator from Florida
  • Donald Trump, real estate developer and reality show star

And here’s the lineup for the 6pm Three Musketeers / Three Stooges / Destiny’s Child debate (who’s Beyoncé? Huckabee, obvs.):

  • Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard
  • Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and media personality
  • Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania

Along for the ride this evening here at Guardian US are:

  • Guardian US reporters Ed Pilkington and Ben Jacobs in Charleston
  • our resident realist, data editor Mona Chalabi
  • my fellow Trump-watchers-in-chief, Scott Bixby and Adam Gabbatt, here at Guardian US HQ in New York
  • Sabrina Siddiqui and Dan Roberts with snap analysis of the “establishment”, whatever that is anymore
  • plus opinion editor Megan Carpentier and her merry band of columnists: Jeb Lund, Lucia Graves and other special guests

It’s another Republican debate night, when we make sense of the political circus so you don’t have to. Because, really, can anyone?

Updated

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