Sunday: Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and new CBS News Battleground Tracker polls
The fault lines in the Republican presidential primary deepened this week with a combative primary debate that pitted Jeb Bush against Donald Trump, and Marco Rubio against Ted Cruz, among other high-profile matchups. The candidates argued about war and peace, about experience and temperament, each seeking an advantage in the last high-profile GOP campaign event of 2015, just weeks before the Iowa caucuses begin to render a verdict on the chaotic primary.
This week on "Face the Nation," we'll talk to two of those candidates - Rubio and Bush. Rubio, the freshman senator from Florida who's pushed his way towards the front of the pack with a message about generational change, will sit down with us in Iowa to discuss the state of his campaign as voting approaches. Polls suggest Rubio may be the most viable alternative to the nomination of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz - both men strongly disliked by the party establishment - but he took a lot of heat from his rivals about immigration and border security on the debate stage this week. How will he kick his campaign into high gear?
We'll also sit down with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in New Hampshire, where Bush has staked his candidacy after falling from the frontrunner pedestal he occupied for the first half of the year. Polls show him struggling to break back into the top tier of candidates, but his supporters were heartened by a feisty debate performance this week in which he finally landed a few blows on Trump, his chief antagonist. How will Bush try to elbow his way back into contention? And are his supporters worried it might be too little, too late?
CBS News Elections Director Anthony Salvanto will join us with fresh numbers from the CBS News Battleground Tracker, looking at the state of the Republican and Democratic races in the crucial early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. It's been a busy few weeks on the campaign trail, and we'll examine how the landscape has changed in the states where it matters most.
Finally, our expert political panel will help us make sense of the busy news week. We'll hear from David Axelrod, a former senior advisor to President Obama, CBS News contributor and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, and the Washington Post's Dan Balz.
It's a broadcast you won't want to miss! Check your local listings for airtimes.