GOP Trump-less in Final Debate Before Iowa Caucuses

According to Nielsen data, about 12.5 million people watched the Republican face-off, beating only an earlier debate on the less-prominent Fox Business Network. “If Fox News has no Trump, then I am all Trump”. Those networks aired segments of a Donald Trump rally, which was scheduled after the GOP contender withdrew from the Fox News debate.

In the latest national Economist/YouGov Poll, pluralities of both Republicans and Democrats think Iowa and New Hampshire have too much influence on who wins the parties’ presidential nominations.

During Thursday’s debate, Trump held an event in Des Moines aimed at raising funds for veterans.

This isn’t the first time Trump has been demanding money to appear at debates; he tried to force CNN to pay him $5 million to appear in a debate past year.

Still, the results in Iowa and New Hampshire will matter to many voters. “He’s riding high in the polls, but are these people actually Trump caucus goers or people who say, ‘You know what, I like Donald Trump.’ There’s a big difference of those who actually say they like you and actually going out and supporting you at a big, long meeting”. The Trump campaign put together the Des Moines event after the NY real estate developer and reality TV personality backed out of a Republican debate because of a dispute with Fox News. And he managed to upstage the debate to a certain extent, dominating Twitter mentions and Google searches during the event. With Trump’s absence from the main debate, the spotlight fell on Senator Ted Cruz. Still, Thursday’s totals – exactly half as many as August – seemed disappointing for the channel.

Trump argued he came out on top in his fight with Fox News, too.

Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate not in attendance to get a boost from the debate. In 2013, the Florida senator sponsored the “Gang of Eight” bill, a reform package that included a path to citizenship for some of the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the country.

However, this debate was the second lowest-rated this election cycle, and Trump will likely try to take a bit of the credit for that.