Americans are tired of the GOP’s War on Woke. Last night’s debate reflected that.

Is the GOP’s “War on Woke” going too far? Polling from multiple left and right organizations has shown that American voters are tired of Republican rhetoric around environmental and social causes.

Last night’s GOP debate, hosted by Fox News, reflected that as candidates shied away from attacking corporations and LGBTQ+ people. Even Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), the self-proclaimed movement leader, has recently moderated his extreme rhetoric as he flounders in the presidential primary standings.

Related:

Here’s where the 8 GOP presidential debate participants stand on LGBTQ+ issues

HRC said the candidates are largely “expected to continue punching down on queer and transgender kids to make themselves look ‘presidential.’”

Moderators only asked one question about LGBTQ+ issues during the debate and candidates avoided answering the question directly. One, Gov. Doug Burgum (R) of North Dakota, even bluntly said the claim that “every teacher is somehow indoctrinating people is just false” when responding to the question about transgender girls playing on girls’ sports teams.

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Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, one of former president Donald Trump’s staunchest defenders, stole the show by pandering to the MAGA base and summed up the party’s dystopian view of America, saying, “We live in a dark moment, and we have to confront the fact that we’re in an internal sort of cold cultural civil war.”

But other than some comments about abortion and the environment, the candidates eschewed staking out extreme positions. Former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) both supported a nationwide ban on abortion and Ramaswamy decried climate change as a “hoax,” but even DeSantis tried to escape the moderator’s question about whether climate change was caused by human behavior.

He rejected a request by the moderators for a show of hands, saying: “We are not schoolchildren. Let’s have the debate.”

Polling has shown that a majority of voters – including Republican voters – support corporations being environmentally and socially responsible. While support for environmental responsibility was higher than on cultural issues, a June Morning Consult poll showed that less than half of GOP primary voters believe companies are doing too much to promote social equality and acceptance.

More than half of GOP primary voters, in a New York Times-Siena College poll, said they were more likely to support a candidate “who says that the government should stay out of deciding what corporations can support” over one “who promises to fight corporations that promote ‘woke’ left ideology.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who has been dubbed the winner of last night’s debate by many pundits, also tried to avoid answering the question about transgender girls in sports, giving a milquetoast response that eventually answered the question by hewing to the MAGA position in a tiny portion at the end.

“There’s a lot of crazy woke things happening in schools, but we’ve got to get these kids reading. If a child can’t read by third grade, they’re four times less likely to graduate high school. So we need to make sure we bring in reading remediation all over this country.”

“We need transparency in the classroom because parents should never have to wonder what’s being said or taught to their children in the classroom,” she continued. “Parents need to be deciding which schools their kids go to because they know best and let’s put vocational classes back into the high schools. Let’s teach our kids to build things again.”

“I will always say I’m going to fight for girls all day long,” she concluded. “Because strong girls become strong women, strong women become strong leaders, and biological boys don’t belong in the locker rooms of any of our [girls].”