What Went Down At The December Democratic Primary Debate

Tonight, I’m following entrepreneur Yang and billionaire activist Steyer, two lower-polling candidates who both stand to benefit from the smaller debate stage — that is, if they can manage to grab more airtime and attention. Their task is to show why they belong among the candidates who made it into tonight’s debate, especially when other low-polling candidates with more traditional presidential credentials (like Sen. Cory Booker) failed to qualify.

Yang was the last candidate to qualify for the debate, and he’s also the only candidate of color on the stage tonight. He’s coming off a strong November debate performance in which he made one of the largest gains in net favorability, according to our post-debate poll with Ipsos, but he also spoke the least. With fewer rivals to jostle with for speaking time tonight, he’ll be under even more pressure to make the case for why he’s a viable option. That likely means focusing on something other than the issues for which he’s best known (universal basic income and automation) to convince watchers that he’s more than a niche candidate with an extremely loyal fan base.

The fact that the debate is taking place the day after the House voted to impeach the president, meanwhile, could tee up Steyer to tout his activist background, which has focused on impeaching the president — before it was cool. However, he didn’t particularly stand out in the November debate and underperformed his pre-debate favorability, which means there’s significant room for improvement on his end. Steyer needs to make the most of the smaller debate stage to prove that he’s not there simply because of his money. Maybe by emphasizing his support for a wealth tax, which could hurt billionaires like him, he can draw a contrast with Michael Bloomberg, the other billionaire who made a late entrance to the race.

We’re back with randomly drawn candidate assignments, and tonight each of our politics reporters will be watching one (or two) of the seven candidates who have made tonight’s stage.

Our politics reporters cover their candidates’ performances in detail, including a post on what they see as each candidate’s strategy going into the debate and a final write-up on how they think their candidates fared tonight. For example, did Warren successfully defend her health care plan? Or did Buttigieg effectively address his lack of support among black voters?

To be sure, we’ll still be watching the debate holistically and reacting to things as they happen in the moment, but the idea here is that we’ll also have a few folks dedicated to following whomever they drew, providing detailed insight on how well (or poorly) their candidates are doing.

Here is who’s watching whom:

• Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux is watching Yang and Steyer.
• Nate Silver is watching Klobuchar.
• Clare Malone is watching Buttigieg.
• Geoffrey Skelley is watching Warren.
• Nathaniel Rakich is watching Sanders.
• Perry Bacon Jr. is watching Biden.

What follows is a series of posts on what our writers will be looking for with each candidate tonight. Amid the general back-and-forth of the live blog, Clare, Nate, Perry, Nathaniel, Amelia and Geoffrey will also periodically check in and share how they think their candidates are doing.

If you have a candidate-specific or policy-specific question, please send ’em to us on Twitter. I’ll try to answer them here on the live blog.

FiveThirtyEight is once again partnering with Ipsos to track the attitudes of likely Democratic primary voters before and after the debate. Just like in our previous polls with Ipsos before the September, October and November debates, Biden is the only candidate whom a majority of primary voters are considering supporting. About 40 percent said they were considering Sanders and Warren in our most recent survey, and about 25 percent of voters said they were considering Buttigieg, the other candidate polling in the top tier. (Respondents could select multiple candidates.)

This is roughly where Sanders has always been on this question, but Warren seems to have dropped a bit in voters’ eyes after crossing the 50 percent mark following the October debate. Buttigieg is not being considered by nearly as many people as Sanders and Warren, but it’s possible he could attract more voters as he’s still not as well known as Biden, Sanders or Warren.

Respondents still gave Biden the best chance of defeating Trump (67 percent, on average), but they also gave Sanders and Warren a better than 50-50 shot of victory, so it’s possible this too could change.

Be sure to check back tomorrow afternoon (Eastern time) to see how these preferences shift — or don’t shift — after tonight’s debate.