Happy Thursday and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, I’m Tara Palmeri. I’m just getting back from a whirlwind trip to Milwaukee for the G.O.P. debate, where I recorded episode two of my new Spotify Original podcast, Somebody’s Gotta Win (subscribe here and here). Thanks again to Alex Thompson for helping me break down the winners and losers of the G.O.P. debate, and to Matthew Bartlett for reporting back with the vibe from New Hampshire.

Tonight, a closer look at what Vivek Ramswamy’s performance means for the establishment’s bet on Ron DeSantis, why Nikki Haley may be getting a second look, plus some news on Vivek’s new money. But first…

• Spin Doctors: A handful of familiar Republican Capitol Hill faces descended upon the Milwaukee spin room last night to flak for their preferred presidential candidates after the first G.O.P. debate. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene were spinning for their no-show candidate, Donald Trump, while John Thune and former senator Cory Gardner fielded reporter questions on behalf of Tim Scott. As for Ron DeSantis, he got some help from Chip Roy, who was out making his case to the crush of reporters after the big event.
• No Senioritis for Pelosi: One of the more batted-around questions in Democratic politics is how involved Nancy Pelosi is in raising money for colleagues, after passing her rolodex to Hakeem Jeffries in January. In fact, a glance at her campaign and leadership PAC finance reports shows the speaker emeritus is still a surprisingly active rainmaker. Pelosi has donated to about 60 House Democratic incumbents so far this year, ranging from safe members like Eric Swalwell to freshmen still getting their political apparatuses set up, like Jasmine Crockett, to nearly all of the vulnerable Democratic members known as “Frontliners.”

  Pelosi also sent cash to four House Democrats who are running for Senate: Colin Allred, Ruben Gallego, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Adam Schiff. But Schiff is still her clear favorite of the bunch, as she gave a separate $100,000 to an independent expenditure called “Standing Strong PAC” that was formed solely to back Schiff’s California Senate campaign. That race includes two of Pelosi’s California delegation members, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter. F.E.C. records also show Pelosi transferred about $1.2 million to groups focused on redistricting, which remains a live issue amid litigation in New York, North Carolina and several Southern states.

  Early each cycle, leadership in both House caucuses set internal fundraising expectations for members (especially the ones who don’t have to worry about reelection) based mostly on leadership positions and committee assignments. Per D.C.C.C. records, Pelosi has already well surpassed Democratic expectations. She’s met the $500,000 in dues the D.C.C.C. requested of her, and has raised $6.4 million in direct contributions to the committee, far beyond the $1 million goal set for her. The D.C.C.C tally calculates she has donated $989,000 to Democratic House candidates in competitive races.

Perhaps not surprisingly, virtually nobody proved that they could take on Trump, who sat out the debate in lieu of a bizarre, meandering, and notably low-energy interview with Tucker Carlson on the app formerly known as Twitter. “The general feeling is that most of these ‘candidates’ are auditioning to be bridesmaids,” said a G.O.P. donor advisor. “When every hand went up but one when they asked whether they would vote for Trump (even if he’s indicted) over Biden, I’d say that sealed the deal.”

The advisor told me she is currently working with despondent donors to redirect their cash to Republicans in Senate and House races in order to gridlock what she expects will be another Biden administration. “We’re resigned to reality,” she said. “The question is, when does this pass? Does Trump swallow the party? Do his kids take it on? I don’t think we know the answer yet.”

Of course, most Republicans aren’t entirely pessimistic about their odds in ’24, considering polls show Trump and Biden in a tight race. But many are preemptively working through their five stages of grief as they reconcile to the possibility that the party’s presidential nominee will be campaigning in courtrooms, if not a prison cell, rambling on incoherently on Truth Social and Tucker on X.

Some have steadfastly held out hope that Youngkin will step into the race this fall, if DeSantis continues to struggle in the polls. But the fantasy that the genteel Virginia governor and former Carlyle Group C.E.O. could become the party’s darkhorse savior was belied on Wednesday night by the enthusiasm for Ramaswamy’s shenanigans. It was yet another reminder that the establishment is largely out of touch with primary voters, who thrilled to the one man who understood the assignment: insult his rivals, entertain the galleries, call the former vice president “Mike,” tell Nikki Haley that she was a boob of the Raytheon aristocracy, and praise Trump. The best-backed candidates faded into the background as supporting characters, once again confused about what had happened to a profession that they once understood so well.

Sure, The Ramaswamy Show could just be a spin-off of The Trump Circus, a stalking horse for a Fox News contract or a vice presidential bid. But on a deeper level, his blowout success on the stage—a post-debate CNN focus group concluded almost unanimously that Ramaswamy had won the night, followed by Haley and DeSantis—exposed the emptiness of warnings from establishment elders, like Mitt Romney, that the party must consolidate around a single Trump challenger. After all, what’s the point of uniting behind another candidate if the second-strongest contender is essentially a Trump knockoff—and perhaps even more radical?

“For donors who were looking for an alternative to Trump, they found that the Trump alternative is a Trump acolyte,” said Matthew Bartlett, a New Hampshire-based operative. “It is clear the party is Trump, and their choice for an alternative to Trump is the person who showed the most love for him.”

Then there was Tim Scott, the laboriously cheery, aggressively pro-life, Larry Ellison-backed senator, who offered a mostly forgettable, milquetoast performance that’s unlikely to impress other donors and primary voters. He stuck to his life story whenever he could—son of a single mother, raised in poverty, overcame the odds—but his talking points had all the urgency of a Senate floor speech. In some ways, his performance was most akin to DeSantis’s: stilted and robotic, and seemed to fade away next to Ramaswamy, who absorbed all of the field’s attacks and quickly shot them right back.

Christie was more of a presence, as always, but he seemed to pull his punches on Trump, and despite a few solid quips, met his match in Ramaswamy, an able-bodied debater and shit-talker. Christie, who was booed by the audience when he did criticize Trump, said the next morning that “you can’t be looking to play to the grandstands.” But, alas, that comment evidenced one of the leitmotifs of the night—Christie was the governor of blue New Jersey a lifetime ago, and he seems out of the game. Ramaswamy’s line about his candidacy being essentially an audition for a cable news gig somehow still landed, despite being previewed by the DeSantis’ super PAC. Indeed, the Republican primary is a grandstand moshpit, outside a few iconoclastic contests like New Hampshire, where Christie sometimes polls in second but his pathway from there remains a mystery.

And while Pence finally showed his backbone by picking fights, his repeated targeting of Ramaswamy almost seemed beneath his station as former vice president. Perhaps the more effective strategy would have been to take on another former governor, instead of telling the wise-guy on stage how things work. After all, his former boss won the presidency by vowing to break existing structures. In any case, it didn’t help Christie or Pence that they were constantly being booed by the attendant Trump supporters. While Pence finally was able to tell the story of his heroism on January 6, the audience’s lack of enthusiasm was yet another reminder that the base doesn’t care about litigating that day, and debate stages aren’t useful platforms for hagiography.

How long will his campaign last? It’s a fair question, but maybe not the right one. First, we’ll have to see if he qualifies for the next debate. Pence, like Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum, barely made the stage last night.

Nevertheless, before the debate ended Wednesday night, I was already getting texts from Democratic operatives imagining a vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Ramaswamy. Others compared him to Pete Buttigieg, another fast-talking (and glib) millennial upstart whom progressives loved to hate on the campaign trail for his Harvard polish and McKinsey credentials.

Of course, there was also incoming from other campaigns noting that the Ramaswamy campaign doesn’t appear to be built to last, and that donors are wary of touching a candidate who sounds exactly like Trump and won’t take him on. But one prominent G.O.P. fundraiser reached out to note that Ramaswamy has been vigorously shaking the donor tree, seeking other people’s money to scale his operation. Among Ramaswamy’s quiet backers is Iowa agribusiness mogul Bruce Rastetter, who held a fundraiser for him recently, and has been encouraging his other deep-pocketed friends to get behind him.

Not all are buying the pitch: One of those potential donors said Ramaswamy was just another chaos agent that should be kept far from the White House. At the same time, the Peter Thiel tech wing of the donor establishment may become enchanted with Ramaswamy like they were with J.D. Vance. My colleague Teddy Schleifer reported yesterday that DeSantis’ super fan David Sacks has not been monogamous and hosted a fundraiser for Ramaswamy at his home in L.A. last week. This Sunday, Ramaswamy will be dipping into the Wall Street well in the Hamptons at a fundraiser hosted by investment banker Omeed Malik.