What Went Down At The First Biden vs. Sanders Debate

Biden gained this big lead in a part of the campaign that didn’t have a bunch of debates. He ran on electability, and a lot of people in the party endorsed and embraced him on that basis. Now that Sanders is on stage with Biden, Sanders is trying to create a debate around policy more than electability and argue that he got the policy decisions right in the past and therefore will in the future. That seems perfectly logical for Sanders — it’s a way for him to illustrate why he has running for president but not really hurt Biden. Biden is not afraid of the idea that he is to the right of Sanders.

The first question after the commercial break is about why Cuban Americans (who make up a lot of the population of Florida, which votes on Tuesday) should vote for Sanders given his comments praising aspects of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. For more on this topic, I recommend you visit FiveThirtyEight tomorrow morning!

Sarah, it seems like tonight Sanders is walking a very line between wanting to push Biden to the left and claiming that Biden embraced progressive policies too late, or not fully enough. I can see how it might be a little jarring for someone who has been out on a limb for so long to suddenly have other people start to claim your ideas. But that’s also the price of having the ideas you’ve fought for move into the mainstream, and it feels a bit like Sanders is wrestling with that tonight — is it good enough for Biden to start to embrace them, or put his own spin on them?