What Went Down In The Third Democratic Debate

That does it for us, folks! Thanks to you for joining us, to our friends at ABC News for hosting the debate and to our live blog team for three-plus hours of #analysis.

As always, we asked our team to sum up the night in old-school newspaper headlines. You can see those below. Or, if you want to see what went down chronologically, just start at the bottom of this live blog and scroll up. Also, check back with us on Friday — in the morning we’ll have a reaction podcast, and in the afternoon our “Who Won The Debate?” project will update with new polling from Ipsos on which candidates performed the best (and worst) and how the debate may or may not have changed the race.

• Nate: In Fiery Debate, Democrats Again Aim Attacks At Biden. (Note: That’s literally The New York Times’ headline as of about 11 p.m. ET on Thursday, but it’s also basically the headline I’d have expected to see.)
• Nathaniel: The headline should be: Candidates Make Pointed Pitches In Substantive Debate. The headline will be: Is Biden Too Old To Be President?
• Clare: Skirmishes Over Obama’s Legacy Draw Blood Once Again
• Seth: Party Whose Voters Really Care About Climate Change Spent 7 Minutes Talking About Climate Change
• Julia: Candidates Talked About Who They Are And Where They Stand, But Will It Change Anything?
• Lee: Too Many Candidates Try To Distinguish Themselves, Most Voters Don’t Watch, Everything Stays The Same, More Or Less
• Chris: The Least Consequential Debate Yet
• Amelia: When All The Candidates Are Solid, No One Stands Out
• Geoffrey: Biden Gets Called Old, Gives It Credence. Will It Matter?
• Colleen: The Lesson Of The Third Debate: Don’t Be A Lawyer
• Galen: The First 15 Minutes Finally Let The Top Three Have It Out. Warren Came Out The Least Scathed.
• Matt: Biden Rambles Through While Others Struggle To Stand Out
• Dan: Debate Viewers Learn Lots Of Little Things, But Little About Who Will Be The Nominee

OK here’s my wrap: If you were really excited — like we were! — about seeing all the major Democrats on together on stage for the first time, that debate felt like a little bit of a letdown.

Whether it’s a Big 3, a Big 4, or something else, I don’t know that any of the front-runners had a particularly strong night. As was the pattern in the previous debate, Biden started out fairly strong and got worse as the night went along, and the evening will probably most be remembered for his rambling answer to a moderator’s question about the legacy of slavery. Warren was … fine/good? But more evasive than usual, and she disappeared for long stretches of the evening. Bernie literally didn’t sound well and I don’t think Democrats will like his answer about the filibuster. Harris just hasn’t been very sharp after a very good first debate, and she’s developed a habit of falling into a languid speaking style and circuitous answers that sometimes land somewhere and sometimes don’t.

Several of the second- and third-tier candidates performed pretty well, by contrast. O’Rourke had some very sharp moments. It was almost certainly Klobuchar’s best debate. Booker is possibly the most consistent debater in the field. I’m not sure Castro’s not-so-thinly veiled attack on Biden’s age will go over well, but who knows … and at least he’s drawing attention to himself. Same with Yang.

So, we’ll see. This is one of those cases where my default is not to expect much change, but it’s a fairly weak prior and I’ll want to see the polling and the post-debate spin. Speaking of which, Ipsos will be re-polling our panel of Democratic voters to see how their opinions of the candidates changed. We’ll let you know as soon as that interactive is updated.

The candidates spent considerably less time talking about Trump tonight than on either night of the second debate: He was mentioned by the candidates 35 times tonight, compared with 61 and 72 times on nights one and two of the second debate, respectively.

OK here’s my wrap: If you were really excited — like we were! — about seeing all the major Democrats on together on stage for the first time, that debate felt like a little bit of a letdown.

Whether it’s a Big 3, a Big 4, or something else, I don’t know that any of the front-runners had a particularly strong night. As was the pattern in the previous debate, Biden started out fairly strong and got worse as the night went along, and the evening will probably most be remembered for his rambling answer to a moderator’s question about the legacy of slavery. Warren was … fine/good? But more evasive than usual, and she disappeared for long stretches of the evening. Bernie literally didn’t sound well and I don’t think Democrats will like his answer about the filibuster. Harris just hasn’t been very sharp after a very good first debate, and she’s developed a habit of falling into a languid speaking style and circuitous answers that sometimes land somewhere and sometimes don’t.

Several of the second- and third-tier candidates performed pretty well, by contrast. O’Rourke had some very sharp moments. It was almost certainly Klobuchar’s best debate. Booker is possibly the most consistent debater in the field. I’m not sure Castro’s not-so-thinly veiled attack on Biden’s age will go over well, but who knows … and at least he’s drawing attention to himself. Same with Yang.

So, we’ll see. This is one of those cases where my default is not to expect much change, but it’s a fairly weak prior and I’ll want to see the polling and the post-debate spin. Speaking of which, Ipsos will be re-polling our panel of Democratic voters to see how their opinions of the candidates changed. We’ll let you know as soon as that interactive is updated.

The candidates spent considerably less time talking about Trump tonight than on either night of the second debate: He was mentioned by the candidates 35 times tonight, compared with 61 and 72 times on nights one and two of the second debate, respectively.

Here are the candidates’ most distinctive words at the end of the debate. What stands out: O’Rourke on weapons and Texas, Harris on her record, Yang on money and immigrants.

Biden had a strong start going after Sanders and Warren on health care pretty effectively on the matter of costs. But then, for really the first time in a debate, his advanced age came up when Castro asked Biden if he’d forgotten an answer he’d said just a few moments ago –- a pretty obvious dig at the fact that Biden is 76 years old. In a moment that might cement that as a storyline, Biden later had a rambling answer on the legacy of slavery where he mentioned that parents should have a “record player” on each night at home. So it seems quite possible that questions about Biden’s age are going to get more coverage and attention than they have so far. In my mind, that’s not good for Biden. But who knows if it’ll actually move the polls.

Klobuchar was very sharp from the get-go, putting in her two cents in the health care section by making her pitch as a moderate alternative to Biden by attacking Sanders’s Medicare for All bill because it would force many people off their current insurance, which she used as an opportunity to plug for a public option. And later she eloquently discussed what she had done to improve the handling of police shootings and work with the African American community while serving as a prosecutor in Minneapolis and then gave a strong answer on gun control. So all in all, it was easily her strongest debate yet. The question is, will it help her in the polls? It might help her if Biden slides, which could happen after tonight. Time will tell.

In a lot of ways, I think O’Rourke had a better night than Harris. Admittedly, the bar was probably lower for him, since he hasn’t yet had a moment and has been struggling in the polls for several months now. But O’Rourke seemed much more energetic than he did in the past two debates, and more focused. He could talk emotionally about the shooting in El Paso because it took place in his hometown, and he came through on that. On the other hand, it does seem like the other candidates don’t see him as a threat — the front-runners were not being congratulated for how they handled something recently.

Harris, on the other hand, was mostly fine but kind of inconsistent. She seemed to get a little lost during a few answers. And she certainly didn’t manage to say anything as incisive or attention-getting as her attack on Biden during the first debate. Tonight is likely not going to help her improve her standing in the polls.

I was watching Warren and Castro today. Warren just kind of kept on truckin’ — she continued to charm with stories of her middle-class background (including a formative chapter of her life spent here in Houston) and continued to emphasize her campaign thesis that the system is rigged toward moneyed interests. She did not take the opportunity to attack, say, Biden, which would’ve been a risk IMO. So I think her standing in the race will stay about the same.

Castro presents a much more interesting case. He was the designated Biden attack dog tonight, calling the former vice president out for taking credit for Obama’s accomplishments but avoiding blame for his failings. Most controversially, he pretty nakedly attacked Biden’s age when he asked Biden if he was being forgetful. Maybe that will tap into a vein of anti-Biden sentiment in the party. Maybe it will turn people off as too vicious. Either way, I think he’s the likeliest candidate to see polling movement after tonight.

Well, let’s start with Andrew Yang. All in all, I think he’s remained interesting to people — that $12k per year for 10 families is going to get him some real notice — and perhaps even gotten more people to Google him. He’s certainly going to grow that campaign list. So, that’s a good night for him, all in all. Sanders had a little bit of a middling night. He seemed to have lost his voice and after the healthcare portion of the debate, he didn’t have many moments. He jabbed Biden a little on the war in Iraq and did a little trade talk, but I’m not sure that he grew his voter appeal more.

Alright, candidate correspondents — give me your final thoughts on who you were watching tonight.

With the debate over, here’s how the candidates compared in words spoken.

Don’t stop watching! Television post-debate commentary often influences voters more than the debate itself, especially if candidates perform better or worse than expectations.

Klobuchar mentions the middle of the country. There’s good reason to think that states like Wisconsin and Michigan will be critical in 2020, so it’s surprising that we’ve gone so long without hearing more about them.

I’ve worked in several fields populated by people who used to be unhappy lawyers.

Primary debates tend to change vote intentions more than general election debates. Crowded primary debates, like tonight, show even larger effects. But I think it was quite hard for anyone to stand out tonight, with no obvious candidate-to-candidate skirmishes to be repeatedly played for the next week (like the Biden-Harris moment from the first debate that dominated coverage and led to a temporary Harris surge).

Booker says, “don’t give up on the people, and they won’t give up on you.” This outro sounds a lot like Booker’s announcement video, which was really powerful.

“I was an unhappy lawyer” and “I lost to March of the Penguins” are weird struggle stories.

Booker mentions “Street Fight,” a documentary about his first run for mayor of Newark in 2002. When I show that movie to my students in a week about political machines, they come away with a really, really positive impression of him.

Harris’s “believe in what can be, unburdened by what has been” is an unusually poetic turn of phrase for a presidential candidate. A quick Google search finds she’s been using it regularly on the campaign trail.

There is something truly revolutionary about the fact that Buttigieg’s sexuality is just now getting mentioned and, honestly, I had kind of forgotten that he’s gay.

The cameras have generally stayed on the speakers tonight, with few reaction shots. That’s different than the 2016 primary debates, when networks focused their cameras on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — even when other candidates were speaking. That’s made it harder for the front-runners to stand out.

This reminds me of Rebecca Traister’s excellent piece on Warren that centered her teaching.

One issue that notably hasn’t come up tonight — abortion. That’s a little surprising, given how much prominence it had earlier in the summer with the wave of extreme state-level restrictions. But according to Morning Consult, it also fell as a priority for voters between June and now.

Nate, I think people generally like teachers, they just may not love Harvard law professors.

I believe this is the first mention of a candidate’s religious faith tonight. That’s not that unusual for a Democratic debate, but it’s noteworthy because Buttigieg has been talking a lot about his religious beliefs on the campaign trail, and he brought them up in the previous debates.

The debate has been interrupted by protesters; it’s hard to hear what they’re saying.

Here’s Biden’s full answer to the moderator’s question about the legacy of slavery, courtesy of our hardworking transcript writers:

Biden: “Well, they have to deal with—look, there’s institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Red lining, banks, making sure we are in a position where — look, you talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title I schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise to the equal raise of, getting out—the $60,000 level. Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we need — we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are — I’m married to a teacher, my deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. We have to make sure that every single child does, in fact, have 3, 4 and 5-year-olds go to school. School. Not day care, school. We bring social workers in to homes and parents, to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t want to help, they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the phone — make sure that kids hear words, a kid coming from a very poor school — a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there. There’s so much –“

Moderator: “Thank you, Mr. Vice president. “

Biden: “No, I’m going to go like the rest of them do, twice over. Okay? Because here’s the deal. The deal is that we’ve got this a little backwards. And by the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I’ve confronted Maduro. Number two, you talk about the need to do something in Latin America. I’m the guy that came up with $740 million, to see to it those three countries, in fact, changed their system so people don’t have a chance to leave. You’re all acting like we just discovered this yesterday. Thank you very much.”

The shrinking of the field has allowed some candidates — Klobuchar, O’Rourke, Booker, and especially Castro — to have some good moments and draw some new attention to themselves. Biden has had some weak moments on the areas where he was already most vulnerable. Not sure we’ve seen any moment on par with the Biden-Harris exchange in the first debate, though, and the effect of that was gone after a few weeks anyway.

I don’t know about any dials, Sarah, but Biden sure moved the, well, whatever you call that thing on a record player. More seriously, I think Booker’s been pretty consistent, but no A-range grades from me tonight.

I think Beto, Klob and mayyyybe Booker have probably had the best nights. I don’t think any of the front-runners have been particularly strong. Maybe Biden was on track to win by default, although the “record player”/rambling answer was pretty bad, although maybe also not really enough to matter.

The last bit has been pretty muddled, but I think my current leaders for strongest performances of the night are Klobuchar, O’Rourke, Castro, and Booker, in some order. But I don’t think anyone has totally outshined everyone else.

OMG. THREE HOURS IS SO LONG.

Pulse check — we’ve got one final question to go — how would you rate the candidate performances so far? Who has moved the dial?

Several times, Booker has given some version of, “Yeah, it’s great to talk about the history of slavery, but look at the racism going on TODAY.”

Biden is hurting himself with rambling answers, but the hit was landed by the moderator question rather than the other candidates. No one except Castro seems to have entered with a plan to hit Biden hard and directly.

We should probably be talking about three different categories of schools: Public, nonprofit charter, and for-profit charter. They all have pretty different results. And for-profit charters are often the ones doing really poorly.

So this debate has not felt very game-changey to me so far. BUT — regarding that “record player” moment — if the media decides that now is the time to have a big conversation about age, maybe it could be?

FWIW I had a dream the other night where I was covering a Biden stump speech and he’d dyed his hair black and was literally running around while delivering his speech in an effort to appear younger and more vigorous.

Our transcript writers are working double time trying to untangle that last Biden soliloquy.

First Castro makes a reference to Biden’s age and then Biden says something about a record player. That’s fodder for late-night TV.

I’m not sure talking about how you want to talk over your time limit is a great talking point.

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