The night heavily focused on international affairs.
The third Republican debate of the 2024 presidential primary was held Wednesday night in Miami.
Five candidates took the stage: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
Missing -- again -- was front-runner Donald Trump, who instead hosted a rally not far away, in Hialeah, Florida.
ABC News and the analysts at 538 live-blogged every major moment and highlight from the debate. PolitiFact made real-time fact checks of key statements.
As 538’s Cooper Burton wrote a few months ago, TikTok bans are popular among roughly half of Americans. But one group that is strongly opposed is young Americans, which Republicans have historically struggled with.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538
The two candidates who have perhaps the most acrimonious relationship on stage, Haley and Ramaswamy, have spent a notable amount of the debate sparring with each other.
After Ramaswamy mentioned that Haley's daughter has used TikTok, despite Republican criticism of the Chinese-owned app -- drawing boos from attendees -- Haley admonished him.
"Leave my daughter out of your voice," she said, adding with an eye roll: "You're just scum."
-ABC News' Adam Carlson
DeSantis said the U.S. Navy isn't large enough and he'd expand it significantly to meet China's threats. Right now, the U.S. Navy has 291 ships but DeSantis says his plan would be 385 ships by the end of two terms.
The Florida governor compared the threat of China today to the threat of the Soviet Union post-World War II, warning a Chinese superpower would want to "export authoritarianism" around the world.
"I think the future of freedom is going to be determined in the Indo-Pacific," he said. "We have a strategy not just with military but decoupling from the economy and fighting them here at home."
He then went after Haley for recruiting Chinese companies to invest in South Carolina when she served as governor, while he's worked to ban Chinese citizens from buying land in Florida.
-ABC News' Alexandra Hutzler
Americans once had fairly mixed views of China, but they have become far more negative in the past five or so years, based on data from the Pew Research Center. In 2018, 47% of Americans had an unfavorable view of China while 38% had a favorable one. But that unfavorable percentage shot up to 60% in 2019 and it's only risen further since -- a whopping 82% said they had an unfavorable view in 2022. The national security and foreign policy attacks that Republican candidates have made on China in this debate likely resonated, although Americans tend not to list overseas concerns as a top worry.
-Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of 538
