By James Oliphant and Gram Slattery

MIAMI Five candidates seeking to halt Donald Trump’s march toward the 2024 Republican presidential nomination gathered in Miami on Wednesday for the party’s third debate while the former president held a separate campaign rally across town.

Here is an early takeaway from the debate:

LAYING BLAME

A night after a stinging series of election losses at the hands of Democrats, the candidates vented their frustrations on the debate stage.

“I’m sick of Republicans losing,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said.

DeSantis has long contrasted his successful re-election last year in Florida with Republican setbacks in the last few elections, including Trump’s loss in 2020. Earlier in the day, his campaign argued that backing Trump cost candidates seats in races such as the one for governor of Kentucky, where Republican Daniel Cameron lost to Democrat Andy Beshear.

Republicans on Wednesday were also smarting from the success of a ballot issue in Ohio that enshrined a right to abortion in the state constitution, as well as the loss of state legislative control in Virginia.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy blamed Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, instead of Trump, for the party’s recent performance.

“We’ve become a party of losers,” he lamented. “We have to have accountability in our party.”

McDaniel was Trump’s hand-picked choice to lead the RNC in 2017, and the committee was a sponsor of Wednesday’s debate.

(Reporting by James Oliphant in Miami and Gram Slattery in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Deepa Babington)