What’s the body language score from the debate last night – the last Republican debate in 2015?

It was the last chance for the candidates to impress themselves upon the voters before the holidays. The real voting is fast approaching, and the candidates must be feeling a little desperate. How to stand out in such a crowd? How to persuade people that you have what it takes to become President? How to take out a few rivals, if you can, in order to make the field a little easier to manage?

I’m going to focus solely on body language. There are plenty of pundits on both sides of the Great Political Divide in the US, so don’t look here for sectarian opinions.

Why body language? Because the research is beginning to show exactly how body language influences our decisions, unconsciously. There’s something a little eerie about thinking that Americans might pick a president based on thought processes that they are not aware of. And it seems only sensible to talk about these issues in order to bring them to conscious awareness.

Beyond that, the insights gleaned from these high-stakes battles can help executives and the rest of us sharpen our presence and body language intelligence and perhaps show up better in the more ordinary fare of speeches, meetings, and conversations. I’ll take each candidate in turn, by polling data, just like the networks. I’ll leave out the B-team candidates because – well, because enough is enough.

Mr. Trump is acting like a winner – but don’t cross him. Mr. Trump has relaxed a bit since the first debate back in August. He’s grown reasonably comfortable with his standing as the top-polling candidate, and as such his on-camera persona is a little less needy than it was. At first, he interrupted, made faces, waved his arms around, and generally hogged the limelight. The other candidates didn’t know how to react and accentuated his dominance by behaving like the proverbial deer in the headlights. But by now, the others have become comfortable attacking him, and indeed he only received the second-longest amount of speaking time on Tuesday night – and was only the third-most-mentioned candidate.

But if you criticize him, Mr. Trump strikes back, as Governor Bush found when he critiqued Mr. Trump’s candidacy as chaotic. The most sustained bit of verbal sparring occurred between Trump and Bush over this issue. The two candidates interrupted one another and talked over each other with Governor Bush winning the round, just.

In body language terms, Mr. Trump is still dominant because of his clearly expressed emotions, his open gestures, and his confidence.

Senator Cruz remains a body language tough sell. Senator Cruz’s habitual expression involves downturned eyes and a downturned mouth. The result is to make him look aggrieved and downcast. While that might work for the percentage of the electorate that feels aggrieved itself, on the whole Americans prefer a positive, confident demeanor. In addition, his voice is highly nasal, and the research shows that we don’t like nasal voices. These serious body language handicaps will prevent Cruz from rising much further in the polls – if body language is as important as I think it is. Stay tuned!

Senator Rubio has the best TV face. On TV, symmetrical faces work best. Rubio’s face is the best for TV, and he has become a better debater with practice. As a result, he is a force to be reckoned with, and I predict he will continue to rise in the polls.

His only noteworthy body language tic is dry mouth, which causes him (when a water bottle isn’t at hand) to lick his lips repeatedly. It’s a gesture that normally conveys nervousness, and so it undercuts his authority in the debating arena. He should rid himself of this habit.

Dr. Carson is fading fast. Carson’s inability to articulate a sufficiently formidable posture toward ISIS is probably consistent with his restrained, gentle manner. That served him well before the Paris attacks, because he stood out as a different kind of candidate. But in times of fear, Americans look for reassurance from strong leaders – or at least those who can talk tough on TV. And so Carson’s quiet body language presence isn’t serving him well in this bellicose phase of the campaign. He’s heading down.

Governor Bush finally came on strong. Mr. Bush got over his diffidence from the previous debates and took Trump on quite forcefully. It was his best debate performance so far. It may be too little, too late, but at the very least it must have given his supporters heart and hope. He looked less uncomfortable and more presidential than he ever has before.

Governor Christie is slowly vanishing back into the New Jersey wilds from whence he came.   There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Christie’s body language, but he just doesn’t stand out sufficiently in a field that has Trump, who is more dominant than Christie, and Kasich, who can play the executive card more convincingly.

Governor Kasich’s body language performance on Tuesday was distinctly odd. Apparently, someone coached Kasich to use the karate chop gesture to the exclusion of all others. He chopped his way through foreign policy, domestic policy, and his daughter’s feelings about politics. He looked ridiculous and the gesture undercut whatever credibility he was attempting to establish as the candidate of bi-partisanship. It was one of the strangest performances from him – or any candidate – to date.    

Ms Fiorina fails to be likeable enough. Fiorina came on strong in one of the early debates when she went a round with Trump and emerged unscathed. But she’s been unable to take it home with the voters because her permanent scowl, like Senator Cruz’s, is simply too negative for most viewers. We want our candidates to be strong and likeable. I think she’s strong enough, but she falls short on likeability.

Senator Paul remains on the fringe. After some early hi-jinks, Paul has settled down into a confident, clear debater. But his policies are too far off the base to get any purchase with the Republicans as a whole, and indeed it’s surprising he’s lasted on the main stage this long. He lacks warmth as a candidate, and as such he doesn’t connect strongly with the TV audience. He’s not going to be around much longer as a main-stage candidate.

There you have it – the current body language handicapping of the Republican candidates. Stay tuned; soon it will be the Democrats’ turn.