CNN Has Bad News For One Guy In Brutal Post-Debate Focus Group

A CNN focus group had unanimously bad news for one candidate in a post-debate segment featuring Iowa voters deciding who won and who lost the second Trump-free Republican presidential primary debate.

Seven qualifying candidates took the stage Wednesday night for the second GOP debate, this time airing on Fox Business Network and once again proceeding without the Republican frontrunner, ex-President Donald Trump. Coverage of the event focused on the chaos and a handful of one-liners — some more successful than others.

Over at CNN, the post-debate coverage included a Gary Tuchman-led focus group of voters in Nevada, Iowa, who were asked to declare a winner via a show of hands, then were asked who had a bad night — and one name rang out (it was Mike Pence):

GARY TUCHMAN: Guys, I want to ask you, show of hands now, ok I’m doing it in alphabetical order. Who do you think did best during this debate? All of you. Burghum? One.

Christie. (ZERO hands go up) Okay. So I guess his toughness didn’t appeal to anybody tonight.

DeSantis. (many hands go up) One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

Haley. (many hands go up) One, two, three, four, five, six.

Pence. (ZERO hands go up).

Ramaswamy. One.

Scott. (ZERO hands go up).

All right, so it looks like DeSantis the winner in this room. Who do you think this was a bad night for?

VARIOUS IOWA VOTERS: PENCE! PENCE! PENCE! PENCE!

GARY TUCHMAN: Pence! Why are you all saying Pence?

IOWA VOTER: I think he completely destroyed his credibility. He was directly questioned on his record during the Trump administration on, I forgot what issue specifically was brought up, but he had no defense that they had campaigned on. So, again, I forget the issue specifically and (Obamacare), but Obamacare, yes, they didn’t follow through with that. And instead of answering the question that was given to him about why that wasn’t followed through and will he do differently as president himself, he just went off about something completely irrelevant and never answered the question.

GARY TUCHMAN: A lot of you raise your hands about Pence. Who else raised their hand about Pence? Why do you think that?

IOWA VOTER: Well, I think that he you know, he comes across a little bit, like not very believable to me. He’s he’s he’s rather pious sounding in his manner, and it makes it come across like, you know, I’m just a politician trying to get your vote. And I’m, it doesn’t seem as believable as he could’ve been.

Watch above via CNN’s “The Republican Presidential Debate: Post Debate: Analysis”