What Went Down At The December Democratic Primary Debate

Poll Bot! You’re sounding more and more like a real robot these days! Not that you aren’t a real robot or anything … shhhhh

Bleep bloop, Poll Bot here. I am rebooted, recharged and ready to provide you humans with interesting polling data during the debate tonight.

I’ll be following along with Buttigieg in the last Democratic debate of 2019. And the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, comes into this showdown in as good a position as he could hope for. The first voting contests are in just over a month and Buttigieg has consistently performed well in polls of Iowa (he’s leading) and New Hampshire (he’s in second), though his national polling average is maybe not quite where he wants it (he has hovered around 9 percent over the past month). But those polling numbers are actually up since November, which is part of the reason why I think you’ll see Buttigieg at the center of a lot of attacks tonight.

He’s a real threat to Warren in particular, given that they both hold an appeal to white, college-educated voters. In the last month, she’s attacked his private fundraisers and even appeared to call his strategy “naive” during one New Hampshire speech. I’ll be keeping a close eye on that dynamic as the debate unfolds tonight. Even though Buttigieg has cultivated a Midwestern nice young man charm on the campaign trail, he is a sharper, more aggressive presence on the debate stage. He’s already tangled with opponents over policy and character issues in previous debates, which makes me think that he’ll come out fighting tonight. And I have no doubt that he and his team know that they’re the target of left-leaning factions of the party, given some recent coverage about why certain blocs of the party seems to so strongly dislike him. So, stay tuned for fightin’ Pete, I guess!