Washington, Aug 25 (IANS) Former US President Donald Trump has scored a double whammy against eight of his rivals in the GOP race for nominations by first releasing a taped interview five minutes before the debate and he hopes to garner all limelight in the media with his announced surrender before the Atlanta courts in his fourth indictment on election interference. While media houses are working at a furious pace to collate the numbers on the Milwaukee debate on how many people watched the debate live.

Even as most American voters would digest the debate via online clips that would be pushed out by the debaters and the media, media reports said.

As of now, Trump leads with 53 per cent backing from supporters and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 16 per cent and surprisingly political novice Indian-American billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy with 11 per cent over all others in the polls.

MO News, which provides a digest of the morning news online to readers in the country, said given Trump continues to dominate in early state polls, the question is whether any of the eight alternatives did enough to convince GOP primary voters that they should switch their allegiances?

The former President remained pretty unscathed and none of the candidates, except Chris Christie, really made a case to voters as to why they should stop supporting Trump. Both burly Christie and slim-fit Ramaswamy were booed by the audiences on their views.

Both Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley seem set to get some momentum from Wednesday night’s debate from the respective wings of the party.

Its everyone’s guess that Trump will remain in the driver’s seat.

With media circus in the offing later in the day, attention will quickly be back on Trump today as he formally surrenders to authorities in Georgia, where he was most recently indicted.

–IANS

ash/khz