After dominating Thursday's night Republican presidential primary debate, many viewers agree that Donald Trump gave the strongest performance.

Just weeks before the first Republican caucuses in Iowa, seven of the top GOP candidates went head-to-head in a 2.5 hour prime time debate on the Fox Business Network in South Carolina.

Some of the most memorable moments of the debate included testy exchanges between Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who are running neck-in-neck for first place in Iowa.

At one point, Cruz confronted the billionaire businessman over his accusations that he isn't eligible to be president because he was born in Canada.

"Back in September, my friend Donald said he had his lawyers look at this in every which way," Cruz said, according to CNN. "There was nothing to this birther issue," he said, adding, "Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed. But the poll numbers have."

In response, Trump maintained that Cruz's eligibility to be president is questionable.

Trump also gave an impassioned response when Cruz criticized him for having New York values.

"Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan," said Cruz.

However, rather than denying that his politics have been tainted by the left-leaning city, the New York real estate mogul commended New Yorkers for their resilience and patriotism in the aftermath of 9/11.

"I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York," Trump said. "The people in New York fought and fought and fought. We saw more death and even the smell of death and it was with us for months."

He also added: "We rebuilt downtown Manhattan and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also clashed at the debate.

"Unfortunately Governor Christie has endorsed many of the ideas that Barack Obama supports, whether it's Common Core or gun control or the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor or the donation he made to Planned Parenthood. Our next president and our Republican nominee cannot be someone who supports those positions," Rubio said about Christie.

Following the debate, an overwhelming amount of people -- 78 percent -- said Trump was the winner in a Washington Times poll. Meanwhile, only 12 percent choose Cruz as the winner, while Rubio came in third place with 5 percent.

Likewise, nearly 70 percent of respondents on Syracuse.com declared Trump as the debate winner, while 13 percent said Cruz was the champ. A little over 9 percent of those surveyed chose Rubio as the winner.

In addition, slightly over 50 percent picked the reality TV star as the champ and 12.3 percent chose Rubio, according to a poll on NJ.com. Cruz is currently polling in third place with 11.26 percent, while Christie is in fourth place with 9.36 percent.