The biggest question for tonight’s debate

Heading into tonight’s debate in Miami, the Republican presidential primary race can be divided into two distinct phases. In the first phase, before April 4, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had narrowed the gap between him and former President Donald Trump from 34 points in June 2022 to 15 points on March 31.

Then Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted Trump on 34 bogus counts of falsifying business records. Since that inflection point, momentum has been with Trump, with each subsequent indictment adding to Trump’s lead.

We may now have passed a second inflection point: the barbaric attack on Israel by Hamas. Trump has only praised Hezbollah and criticized Israel since the massacre, while DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, onetime New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) have all strongly supported Israel in their desperate time of need. (Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has been more equivocal.)

Israel's war against Hamas is important in and of itself, and it is an issue of vital international and national security. But it has also revealed the rot that has corroded college campuses. Many people knew Hamas members were remorseless terrorists before Oct. 7 but probably did not know how depraved they were. Likewise, many knew college campuses had become bubbles of far-left ideology but weren’t fully aware of just how pervasive, pernicious, and perverse higher education indoctrination had become.