Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s live blog of the 11th Republican debate, a four-man event in Detroit hosted by Fox News. It takes place at the end of a momentous day in the campaign: The 2012 GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, called his party to arms this afternoon against the front-runner for this year’s nomination, Donald Trump. It was by far the most forceful denunciation of Trump by his party’s old guard, and clearly illustrated the party’s growing and unbridgeable divide. Romey called Trump a “fraud,” and Trump later responded in-kind, saying Romney would have dropped to his knees in 2012 for Trump’s endorsement.
It’s all part of an increasingly tense struggle between the Trump and anti-Trump forces. Trump leads the field in polls of most upcoming states, and has won more contests than anyone else. But Trump has won only about one-third of the vote so far and less than half the delegates. In other words, Trump is the clear front-runner, but he’s not running away with this thing.
That, however, could change in 12 days, when the winner-take-all states of Florida and Ohio vote. If Trump wins both, he’ll likely knock John Kasich and Marco Rubio out of serious contention and be on his way to the nomination. If he loses both, we could be on our way to a contested convention.
In other words, the stakes for tonight’s debate are high. Will Trump continue to defend himself from Romney and attack in return? Will Rubio continue to make fun of Trump on both style and substance? Will there be a truce between Ted Cruz and Rubio in order to create a united front against Trump? Will Kasich continue to try and stay above the fray?
Watch it all unfold with us.
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