DeSantis and Haley battled at GOP debate but 'real winner was Trump', says expert

Published in Daily Express US, January 11, 2024
By Isabella Durso

EXCLUSIVE: John Ellis, a former NBC News political analyst, said that even though Donald Trump did not participate in the GOP debate on Wednesday, he still won.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley may have been the only two candidates on stage at Wednesday’s Republican debate, but one political analyst said Donald Trump was the real winner.

While DeSantis and Haley battled one-on-one at the debate hosted by CNN in Des Moines, Iowa, the former president was two miles away at a televised Fox News town hall beginning at the same time.

The debate was DeSantis and Haley’s last chance to emerge as the top alternative to the GOP frontrunner before the Iowa caucuses on Monday, but unfortunately for them, most viewers tuned in to Trump’s town hall instead.

John Ellis, a political analyst whose work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, said exclusively to Daily Express US that Trump was, in fact, the real winner of the debate despite not being there.

Ellis said: “Hands down, Trump won.”