Now, several 2024 republican hopefuls will take the stage again in the party s second primary debate. as we wait for that in this continuation of his all over the map series, john king reconnected with iowa voters he met last week, this time seeing where they stand following the first debate. it is debate night, and in iowa, popcorn is the snack of choice. betsy is thrilled to watch with her parents and thrilled donald trump decided to boycott and leave the stage to others. i think the it felt like the schoolyard bully calling his friends names. and i m not interested in that. sar cone is a two-time trump voter eager to move on. i m pulled toward desantis. governor ron desantis was her favorite when he first met several weeks ago and when she tuned in tuesday night.
look, it s important perspective. thank you so much. general wesley clark, great to have you on tonight. thank you, john. so, how are voters feeling after watching the first republican primary debate. john king continues his all over the map series to see if the debate swayed the minds of voters that he recently met in iowa. wherever you go. wherever you stay. all you need is one key. earn and use rewards across expedia, hotels.com, and vrbo. (josh allen) is this your plan to watch the game today? (hero fan) i have to watch my neighbors nfl sunday ticket. (josh allen) it s not your best plan. but you know what is? myplan from verizon. (v for a limited time get nfl sunday ticket om youtubetv on us. a $449 value. plus, get a free samsung galax z flip5. only on verizon.
A downward spiral. desantis has been elevated for me. reporter: that s a shift from a few weeks ago. there s just a lot of around him. is that a technical term? reporter: how these booming suburbs shake out matters. so, even if there is a new favorite after debate number one. so, you want a desantis/haley ticket? or a haley haley/desantis. haley/desantis. reporter: the shopping will continue. and for many, math more than policy will shape the final choice. the question is, can she win, right? so, that s my main question. she personally would be my favorite candidate right now. but desantis, you know, at this point looks more viable. reporter: pass the popcorn. the second debate is in a month. it s so interesting to hear that thinking. john king reporting. just ahead, as millions of students across the country kick off the new school year, gary
president trump, i believe, was the best president of the 21st century. mudd loved it. i m from the usa, mudd texted. trump reps that best in my opinion. vivek sounds great. nod to forsythe. he s brilliant, he s got energy, he s young. i really liked him. post debate, this. he just isn t grown up enough to be president. he s trying to be trump, but he isn t. i think ramaswamy probably went down because of that abrasiveness. but what is toxic in the suburbs is often tonic to others in today s gop. trump people might have found that attractive about ramaswamy, right? he might pull some of that crowd. who knows. reporter: trump is way ahead and that won t change if the anti-trump vote is stringalled across the debate stage. his statement was powerful when he said, the country is in
With the former president s team in the motorcade yesterday both from the airport to the county to fulton county jail but then also back to the airport. and i could tell that they weren t really sure how yesterday was going to go. but in the hours after that and also all throughout today i ve been speaking with his team. and they think that it went as well as it could have. particularly, they were pleased with the media coverage of it. again, because it was pulling away and really sucking up a lot of the oxygen of the debate coverage. of course normally the day after the debate, you have the media dissecting what candidates said on stage. of course donald trump was not there. but instead a lot of that attention was focused on donald trump surrendering. they do think it s a positive, even though of course it s something that donald trump did not want to happen. he was frustrated by it. they still see the benefit of having that wall to wall coverage focused on the former president, joh