The five remaining Republican candidates will meet tonight in Houston for the much-anticipated last debate before Super Tuesday next week. Tonight’s debate is sponsored by CNN in partnership with the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Wolf Blitzer will moderate.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
CNN Republican Debate
8:30pm ET (7:30pm CT, 6:30pm MT, 5:30pm PT)
Live Stream: CNN.com
Location: Houston, TX
Candidates: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Carson
Moderator: Wolf Blitzer
Report from AL.com:
The debate is the final before the pivotal March 1 Super Tuesday primaries and comes just as Trump scored a strong showing in South Carolina, where he took all of the state’s 50 delegates, and overwhelming victory in the Nevada Republican caucus. The battle heating up now is for second place, with Rubio and Cruz running neck and neck in many states.
The CNN/Telemundo debate was originally slated for NBC for Feb. 26. The Republican National Committee changed its debate plans after what the party said were unfair questions and moderators during NBC’s previous GOP debate on Oct. 30.
I’m conflicted as to whether this debate will be a bloodbath or whether the campaigns will cool off a bit given how the attack strategy failed to temper Trump’s momentum in South Caroline and Nevada. In that regard, how can Cruz or Rubio attack Trump effectively in a way that hasn’t already failed? Trump has his weaknesses, like all candidates, but at this point he’s on track for a strong Super Tuesday showing. If they take the other route, if simply “playing nice,” doesn’t that mean they’re not making up any ground with that strategy either?
I think at this point the real name of the game is for Rubio and Cruz to hope that the other one implodes or starts to look like it has no course to the nomination. If voters think Cruz is tapped out after 3rd place in South Carolina and Nevada, Rubio will be hoping to capitalize the anti-Trump vote and maybe pick off a few states on Tuesday.
We’ll have the full debate video after it airs.
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