‘It’s Too Late Now’: DeSantis and Haley Supporters Trash Trump’s Debate Performance

These supporters feel that Trump has too many weaknesses that he had to defend and lamented that their respective candidates would have turned in a much better debate performance.

The candidates traded shots back and forth for 90 minutes, leading to some intense exchanges.

“Ambassador Haley would certainly offer a softer tone in debating Kamala Harris and would be able to answer questions about abortion and the economy with more focus, but the campaign itself would be significantly different,” said Republican New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu. “The Democrat’s campaign is entirely structured on making Donald Trump the issue and, by doing so, making him a socially unacceptable alternative for November 2024.”

This is a dramatic reversal from June when this same poll found that viewers thought that Trump overwhelmingly outperformed Biden 67-33.

“If Nikki Haley had been in that debate, it would have been great. It would have been lights out. I was thinking about how she would have performed, but primaries are different. They can be pretty vicious even within your own party, but at the end of the day, most folks will galvanize around the candidate,” Sununu said.

“It’s too late now but GOP voters had a lot of choices in the primaries — and they picked the guy who had the best chance of … losing. Nikki Haley would have been a much better choice … but Republicans are stuck with who they voted for,” wrote journalist and analyst Bernard Goldberg.

“Imagine how different this debate would have been with Nikki Haley. I have a feeling she would have had more than just ‘concepts of a plan,’” wrote anti-Trump Republican Cara Mund who previously ran for a Congressional seat in North Dakota.

“Imagine a disciplined conservative who could stay focused on his or her attacks, not indulging deranged conspiracy theories, didn’t bicker about rallies sizes etc etc etc etc,” Cosper wrote on X.

“I know I know, most people don’t want to hear it, but Ron DeSantis would have crushed that debate last night,” wrote X user Shoren Schwab.

“‘The moderators helped Kamala! It was 3 on 1!’ DeSantis would have been been able to win an actual 3 on 1 debate. The moderators wouldn’t have fact checked DeSantis the same way because they know he backs up everything he says. We could and should have had Ron DeSantis,” wrote one X user.

“Gov. DeSantis would have exposed this vacuous woman in the first 5 minutes. Let’s not be stupid in 2028, Republicans,” wrote an X user.

“Instead of nominating the most deranged person in public life, Republicans could have picked Haley or DeSantis, both of whom have proven they can handle media bias adeptly. But instead, the GOP once again chose a conman who can’t argue his way out of a paper bag. The consequences of that are on them,” Whalen wrote in an X post.