It looks like the debate thread on FR for the January FoxBiz debate had 3,800 posts by this same time. So this debate appears to have been viewed by a little less than half as many FR readers as the last one.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3383774/posts?q=1&;page=3751
That makes a lot of sense, as FR seems to be more or less evenly divided between all non-Trump candidates, at this point, and Trump.
The thing is, Trump appeals to many more non-Freeper types than Cruz does, from what I can tell. IF he (Trump) can get those folks out to caucus...