What Went Down At The January Democratic Debate

Aaaand we’re off! It’s so interesting to me that Sanders is now trumpeting his foreign policy record (i.e., his anti-Iraq War vote), in part because in 2016 it was seen as his weakness. Obviously he was running against a former secretary of state in Clinton, but it’s just indicative of how much four years changes things.

In the FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll conducted this week, 4.3 percent of people said foreign affairs was the most important issue to them in the Democratic primary — up from 2.4 percent before the December debate. Here’s who those respondents thought would be best at handling the issue. (See other results from the poll here.)

Who voters think is best on foreign affairs

Among the 143 respondents who said foreign affairs was the most important issue to them in an Ipsos/FiveThirtyEight poll

candidate		Share of respondents
Joe Biden	67.8%	–
Bernie Sanders	11.7	–
Someone else	7.8	–
Elizabeth Warren	6.1	–
Pete Buttigieg	4.1	–
Tom Steyer	1.5	–
Amy Klobuchar	0.9	–

On the first question, pertaining to Iran, Sanders goes right to his vote against the Iraq War — certainly his most valuable foreign-policy credential.