THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

But nowadays, after the latest Republican debates, the multitude of candidates has spread out across the land to tell you how wonderful their performance was, even when it was an abject failure.

Negotiating a debate’s aftereffect is a delicate art — a multipronged scramble to assuage supporters, call attention to highlights and prove that a campaign’s immediate boasts of victory were more credible than wishful.

The candidates are likely to cross paths again soon, at least offstage: Nearly all the Republican contenders will make the pilgrimage to South Carolina on Friday for a forum hosted by the conservative group Heritage Action for America. (They are not expected to appear together.)

But first, several candidates strove on Thursday to influence how their debate showings would be rated, crisscrossing the country for public events and appearing on television to trumpet their performances.

Donald J. Trump followed an uneven debate with an event here in New Hampshire, where he bragged that he had won the debate and noted that he was ahead of rivals like Carly Fiorina — and smiled as his crowd booed her name.

Mr. Trump, taking questions from the audience later, failed to correct a man who asserted that President Obama was a Muslim — a break from the practice of Senator John McCain and some other Republicans who have pointedly told voters that, no, Mr. Obama is a Christian.

“We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims,” the man said, leading off the question-and-answer session with Mr. Trump. “We know our current president is one — you know he’s not even an American.”

Mr. Trump chuckled and said, “We need this question — this is the first question.” He went on to commiserate with the man about the possible existence of training camps in the United States to prepare Muslims to attack the West. “We’ll be looking at that and a lot of other things,” Mr. Trump said, sidestepping whether such camps existed.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was quiet on the campaign trail on Thursday, but he did tell Fox News in an interview that the debate had been framed like “a pay-per-view boxing match,” and he defended his Senate attendance record after Mr. Trump poked him over it Wednesday night.

Besides Mr. Walker, perhaps no candidate faced more pressure for a breakout debate than Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, who stopped in Las Vegas for a rally on Thursday.

But Mr. Bush drew an anemic turnout, with fewer than 150 supporters (and 40 journalists). He reminded the crowd that Nevada was a caucus state and, alluding to Mr. Trump’s critique of his vitality as a candidate, expressed hope that “I will be so brilliant and so eloquent and so high-energy that you sign up.”

What a bunch of losers!!