What Went Down At The December Democratic Primary Debate

That is so terrible 😂 But I think Yang is a good guess, Amelia. Fits his hip internet persona well.

Here’s the question of the night: Which candidate will be the first to make a Star Wars joke? My money’s on Yang, but maybe it’ll be Bernie — or, as his supporters are calling him, “Obi Bern Kenobi.” (You may groan.)

Biden remains comfortably ahead of his opponents in national polls. In the early primary and caucus states, he is second in Iowa (Buttigieg is first), third in New Hampshire (trailing Buttigieg and Sanders) and in the lead in both Nevada and South Carolina.

The former vice president is in a fairly strong position in my view, not only because of his own strengths but also because Buttigieg’s rise doesn’t threaten him all that much. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor is in position to win Iowa and New Hampshire — states Sanders and Warren really need to win if they want to take on Biden. But because Buttigieg shows no signs of making gains among voters of color, he is a weaker contender once the primary process moves past the overwhelmingly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

As for his debate strategy tonight, I would expect Biden continues to employ the strategy he has pursued throughout the year — suggest he is the candidate best-positioned to defeat Trump, play up his ties to former President Obama and argue some of the more liberal policy ideas of Sanders and Warren won’t work and actually make it harder for Democrats to win the general election.

My big question tonight is this: How will Biden deal with Buttigieg, and vice versa? The former vice president, perhaps aware of what I laid out above, has not attacked Buttigieg all that much, even as the mayor has surged in polls. But I wonder if tonight Biden takes some jabs at Buttigieg, or plays up his experience to contrast with the 37-year-old. I tend to think Buttigieg winning in Iowa and/or New Hampshire, as opposed to Warren or Sanders, helps Biden, but of course, the safest course of action would be for the former vice president to win those states himself. And if the mayor starts more directly attacking Biden, casting him as a figure from an older generation that needs to give up power, how does the vice-president respond?

There is one big caveat to all this, though: It’s not clear this debate (or any of the upcoming ones) has big stakes for Biden, especially considering he has had bad moments in some of the previous debates and those have not really affected his poll numbers. Biden has remained between 25 and 28 percent in the polls for months now, suggesting his lackluster debate performances aren’t turning off his supporters. (Or perhaps they are only lackluster in the minds of journalists like me!)