What Went Down In The New Hampshire Democratic Debate

Well, tonight’s debate was touted by the chair of New Hampshire’s Democratic Party as perhaps “the most consequential New Hampshire primary debate ever.” The question is … was it? I’m not entirely sure. There were a number of strong moments from nearly all of the candidates, but perhaps there wasn’t one solid zinger like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s takedown of Sen. Marco Rubio in 2016.

Sanders and Buttigieg both had quite a bit of speaking time, which makes sense given their performance in Iowa and their standing going into New Hampshire, but Biden also managed to steal the mic quite a bit, and actually spoke more than Buttigieg. Only Yang really struggled to get any airtime. That said, none of the exchanges were particularly pointed this evening, so it’s hard to know how this will change things as we head into the primary next Tuesday.

Sanders, who our model thinks has a 68 percent shot of winning the most votes in New Hampshire, had a strong evening, as did Buttigieg, who has a 1 in 4 shot. At this point, we’ll have to wait for some more polls to see how the picture changes, but in the meantime, scroll to relive this blog in all its chronological glory.

And we’ll also be back tomorrow with our post-debate poll with Ipsos that measures how the debate changed voters’ views of the race.

The live blog team’s takes on tonight’s events in a newspaper-y headline:

Nate: In Feisty Debate, A Lack Of Clear Winners

Clare: Another Democratic Debate; Front-runner Disputed

Perry: Debate Shows Other Democrats Are Worried About Rising Buttigieg And Sanders

Geoffrey: The Main Target Tonight Was Buttigieg, But He Mostly Batted Away The Attacks

Nathaniel: No Candidate Able To Grab Momentum In Debate That Is Somehow Both Feistier Than Past Debates And Totally Derivative Of Them

Kaleigh: Iowa was THIS WEEK!

Meena: In New Hampshire, 6 White Candidates Awkwardly Talk About Race

After a strong start for Buttigieg, Biden ended up with a solid lead in terms of words spoken by the end of the night. Sanders and Klobuchar spoke a similar amount, while Warren said less — closer to Steyer than one might expect, given her third-place finish in Iowa. Yang was last, quite a long way behind the others.

Final counts are in: Steyer ended up overtaking Sanders in mentioning Trump’s name. Biden and Warren are the two who mentioned him least.

The final approximate candidate speaking times from ABC News:

BIDEN – 19:35

SANDERS – 19:05

BUTTIGIEG – 18:16

KLOBUCHAR – 16:21

WARREN – 15:59

STEYER – 12:19

YANG – 7:43

Here are some of the most distinctive words and phrases of the evening.

Buttigieg got attacked, and generally responded well. His debate performances have been consistently strong. I think he’s in good shape for New Hampshire.

I’m just going to repeat my Biden take from earlier, since nothing he did in the final 20 minutes was very memorable, which is that I’m not sure how all of this is going to be received by voters at home? I said at the start of the evening that I thought he needed to project confidence. There are a lot of ways to do that. One of which is not saying that the beginning of the debate that you expect to lose New Hampshire. But for the rest of the debate, we got a feistier, brawlier side of Biden, which projects a sort of confidence, and I think otherwise also might not be a bad strategy for him under the circumstances. But I’m not sure it was always executed all that smoothly. I want to see our post-debate poll. My sense is that he might have limited his downside more than he helped his upside.

Sanders was dynamic and forceful, per usual. I guess the question is, did he need to broaden his appeal? He’s leading the polls in New Hampshire, but Buttigieg seems to be catching up. It’s hard to say whether this debate will move things, but there’s a danger for Sanders that his narrow appeal will catch up to him if another candidate can quickly consolidate more support. That person hasn’t been Biden in Iowa or New Hampshire so far, but it could be Buttigieg. It’s possible Sanders could pull in supporters from Warren with his performance tonight, but I don’t think Warren had a poor night. So I don’t know if Sanders did anything special to boost his standing in a way that will help him long term. But he might win New Hampshire anyway.

Steyer includes both Columbia, South Carolina, and Las Vegas, Nevada, in his closing statement. Those are the two states where he is staking his campaign.

Watching Yang tonight, he seemed more confident and comfortable on the debate stage than in December, but failed to push beyond the same old notes of automation and universal basic income. That said, it might be due to the fact that he had less speaking time than any other candidate — not much of a shot to speak beyond his pet policies. Steyer played an unusual role, as we all noticed. Rather than pitching himself as a legitimate candidate, he seemed more intent on trying to steer the agenda. I can’t help wondering if either will be back on the stage in Las Vegas.

I watched Warren tonight, and I don’t think she had the night she needed. I’ve watched debates earlier this year in which she was the clear standout, a center of attention, steering the conversation with her famous “plans.” The plans and her usual liberal talking points were still there tonight, but she didn’t get as much time to speak, and her answers often felt tacked onto conversations rather than existing at the center of them. That said, she avoided catching any of the fire that many of the other candidates got, and she got in a few good jabs, like the one on Buttigieg on race. Basically, she had a solid performance. New Hampshire should be a good state for her (she’s from next door), and it might be her last chance for a while to make an electoral splash. But I don’t see this debate catapulting her into first place on Tuesday.

OK, y’all, last question of the debate. So it’s time, candidate correspondents, to give me your final takes of the evening — how did your candidate do? And what do you make of this debate overall? Did it change anything going into the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday?

“Turn the page” is Buttigieg’s phrase of the night, right? He’s used it five times, per the transcript.

Again, from our friends at ABC News, approximate speaking times at 120 minutes:

BIDEN – 17:41

SANDERS – 17:27

BUTTIGIEG – 16:50

WARREN – 14:31

KLOBUCHAR – 14:15

STEYER – 10:41

YANG – 6:02

Nathaniel, some Ph.D. candidate will probably use the ice storm as a natural experiment in their thesis to see how much debates matter.

I’m curious how many Granite Staters are actually watching this debate. First, it’s on a Friday night, which means viewership will probably be down anyway. But also, there was an ice storm here today, in which 33,000 people lost power.

I think it’s fair to wonder whether local election results are applicable to national elections, but for what it’s worth, my analysis of Minnesota’s 2018 Senate race showed that Klobuchar didn’t exhibit her usual overperformance with Minnesotans of color.

Nate, maybe.

The U.S. Representative in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, Chris Pappas, has also not endorsed. The 2nd district representative, Ann Kuster, endorsed Buttigieg.

For the record, Nate, neither Shaheen nor Hassan has endorsed in this race … But Bill Shaheen, Jeanne’s husband and a big figure in the party, is behind Biden.

Galen, I’d say after Iowa, Buttigieg is kind of comfortably embracing that role. I think Klobuchar sees him as the main target to beat, given her attacks on him this evening.

In response to Galen’s question, the moderate alternative to Sanders remains unclear to me. Buttigieg is, I think, doing well in this debate. But we need actual evidence that Biden won’t clean up among black voters in the South and/or that Buttigieg can at least get some support among black and Latino voters, who combined are more than a third of primary voters. I feel pretty confident that it won’t be Klobuchar.

That’s an interesting question, Galen. I definitely don’t think who the moderate front-runner is at this point is any clearer to me. Biden has had good moments this evening, but so has Buttigieg — and Buttigieg is leading in New Hampshire. I’m less sure of Klobuchar? She’s had a strong performance, but she’s also had a quite a few good debate performances that haven’t really moved the needle for her, so I’m not sure why this one would.

Galen, I’d say Buttigieg and Biden have been waging quite a fight for the moderate lane tonight — they’ve spoken the most besides Sanders, after all. The good news for Buttigieg is that he’s on the upswing in New Hampshire and I don’t think much stands out from his performance that would really curtail him. So maybe it’s him by default if Biden isn’t recovering.

Did Klobuchar accept a dare to say “Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan” at least 14 times tonight?

I don’t think so, Galen. I don’t think this has been a momentum-stopping debate, so I think Buttigieg might continue to rise in New Hampshire. But I think Biden has shown he still has some fight left in him, so I don’t think his current supporters (and he still has plenty in national polls) will leave him as a result of his answers tonight.

It seems, post-Iowa, that one of the biggest questions in the Democratic primary (maybe other than who will win) is: Who will be the moderate-ish alternative to Sanders? Has this debate so far made that any clearer?

You’re probably right, Nathaniel — but it is one of the few issues where there are some real divisions! Sanders, no. Warren and Klobuchar, who aren’t that similar politically, yes. But right, I don’t know how much this one piece of policy impacts who you’ll vote for.

I’m watching Sanders, and I think he’s been his usual dynamic self. However, I don’t think he’s done much of anything to try to appeal beyond his base. This of course has been a long-standing issue with Sanders. Now, if the field remains very fragmented, maybe it doesn’t matter — he can win with a plurality. But I think in the face of Buttigieg’s improvement, Sanders would be in a stronger position in New Hampshire if he were pulling in other voters (even if they’re other left-leaning supporters of Warren). That would improve his chances. I’m not sure he’s capable of broadening his appeal, though.

Looking at candidates’ most distinctive words, a few stick out — “diverse” from Steyer, “deal” from Biden, “capitalism” from Yang and “government” from Warren.

I can’t imagine that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement is a useful topic for viewers. A recent Monmouth poll found that 61 percent of Americans don’t have an opinion on the trade deal.

Since I’m watching both Steyer and Yang, the race discussion was particularly interesting: Steyer, because he raised the issue and forced his fellow candidates to put forward some ideas (again, setting agenda vs. campaigning) and Yang because he’s the only person of color on stage but was only called on towards the end. Still, Yang made a compelling argument that his platform’s focus on fighting automation is just as much a race issue as any other.

To be honest, as your Klobuchar correspondent, it’s like, the more things change (i.e., get closer to Election Day) the more they stay the same: once or twice an hour in a debate, Klobuchar has a riff that elicits audience applause, etc., but…Is it going to make a difference outside of these three hours? Will it cause people to support her and not one of the top-four polling candidates? Eh.

As for how the candidate I’m watching, Joe Biden, is doing at the two-hour mark, I … don’t know for sure? I don’t know how anyone has done, really. Klobuchar has been good, I guess? It’s been a weird debate. As I said before, I think it’s good for Biden that he’s had some presence tonight instead of fading into the background. I also thought his hit on Sanders on guns was potentially effective. But he hasn’t always been smooth, delivery wise, and his “expectations lowering” answer was weird. So it’s sort of a mixed bag.

As your Warren correspondent, I continue to think she’s doing … fine. Her message has been consistent with previous campaigns, and she remains a very credible messenger on issues like political corruption and racial justice. But she has spoken less than the top three candidates, so I think she’s fading into the background a little bit.

All right, we’re now roughly two-thirds of the way through the debate … where does this leave folks so far? How has your candidate done? Or what one moment has stood out to you in this last hour?

The other thing people seem to think is that Bloomberg would love to take on Bernie one-on-one. But Bloomberg plays perfectly into Sanders’s critique about the influence of money in politics!

Yeah, Nate, as I wrote recently about the qualification rules for the Nevada debate on Feb. 19, maybe Democrats should be happy that the DNC has removed the donor requirement, possibly opening a path for Bloomberg to make it. If so, he might feel pressure to participate and have to face criticism from his opponents face-to-face.

Sure, Bloomberg has a lot of money. He was also a registered Republican at various points. Seems like another good talking point.

And Yang’s point about automation disproportionately impacting black Americans is backed by research.

Predictably, the candidates are not happy about Michael Bloomberg’s campaign, criticizing him for spending tons of money to “buy” an election. Warren leads the charge, saying it runs counter to the party’s opposition to the Citizens United ruling, and she criticizes other candidates for having outside PACs spending on their behalf.

This is a reminder for the OMG BLOOMBERGZ POLLZ RISING! crowd that being out of the debates — and not competing in the first four states — has also meant he’s taken virtually no incoming fire from the other Democrats, even though he has some fairly obvious vulnerabilities.

This is the second straight debate in which Warren has tried to raise herself and Klobuchar in the same breath.

Yeah, Nate — although Yang has also probably been the candidate of color who has been the least keen to bring up his race. When I first wrote about him for the site, his campaign told me that they were aware of his potential to make history, but they didn’t want to be seen as the token Asian candidate.

I’m pretty sure that Andrew Yang has had just about the least speaking time in this fairly long segment on race.

While Buttigieg was leading in the early part of the debate, Biden has been speaking a lot in the second hour — he’s increased his lead in words spoken over the others. But Yang is still far behind.