Who Won and Who Lost at the #GOPDebate, According to the Internet

Looks like Rubio has the lead, with Cruz a close second.

1.15.2016
News
Caleb Howe
  

On Thursday night, the first primary debate of the new year took place among Republicans in Charleston, SC in a Fox Business Network event. As with every primary debate, commentators, opinion writers, reporters, and average Joes weighed in to declare who won and who lost. From our survey of the landscape, it looks like Rubio generally has the lead, with Ted Cruz very closely in second.

At The Weekly Standard, Jonathan Last declared Rubio and the new "low-key" Trump "triumphant" in what he characterized as essentially two different, simultaneous debate dramas.

Rubio's short-term strategy is simple: Beat Christie, Bush, and Kasich in New Hampshire and then consolidate their supporters as they become non-viable in the aftermath.

At leading conservative website RedState, Leon Wolf scores it for Rubio.

There is no other candidate on stage who can come close to engaging him on style (with apologies to Chris Christie), and only Cruz has a better ideological pedigree. Rubio got off virtually every memorable line of the night ...

National Review Online, like most of the other articles we are citing, narrow the actual race down to four people.

the Republican primary is increasingly focused on four men: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie. The debate was shaped by the clashes between them.

In those clashes, it is clear that Rubio and Cruz have the upper hand, with a slight edge to Cruz.

And without naming him the winner, the American Spectator essentially scored it for Rubio as well, stating: 

Someone should tell Cruz and Christie that if they go after Rubio in a debate they are going to come out on the losing end.

On the other hand, from the average Joes, it seems Cruz takes the game. Frank Luntz's focus group overwhelmingly favored Cruz, as seen in the above clip.

Popular conservative blog The Right Scoop, writing about the Luntz focus group, made a pretty straightforward assessment.

Cruz, simply put, did the best out of all of the candidates and this focus group proves it.

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