That’s A Wrap
Well, it could be because this is our third live blog of the week (and our second of the day), but I struggled to identify some of the key moments in tonight’s debate while impeachment remains the topic du jour in Washington.
One thing was certain though: Democratic candidates seemed less willing to see how far they could push each other to the left on big policy ideas. Some of the lower-tier candidates like Klobuchar and Booker managed to deliver strong performances this evening, as well. Tonight could prove pivotal for Booker’s future in the race, too, as he’s still a long shot to qualify for the Dec. 19 debate.
Of course, the race shifted after the last debate. Biden is still in the lead, but the gap between Warren and Sanders is tightening and Buttigieg has made some big gains in both Iowa and New Hampshire polls, so there’s always the question of how this debate will alter the race going forward.
To relive the live blog in all its chronological glory, scroll back to the bottom and read up. If you’re not into that idea, though, I’ve got two other options for you. First, check back here tomorrow — we’re partnering with Ipsos to measure how the debate changes voters’ views of the race. Second, I asked the live blog team to sum up the night’s events in a newspapery headline. Here’s what they came up with:
Perry: 2020 Rivals Generally Lay Off Surging Buttigieg And Front-runner Biden
Nate: Rivals Mostly Avoid Attacking Buttigieg And Other Candidates Who Are Leading In the Polls
Galen: A Debate That Covered Roughly 15 Topics In Two Hours Risks Not Making It Above The Fold On A Day Rocked By Impeachment Testimony
Dan: Medicare For All Takes A Backseat And So Do Attacks On Front-runners
Nathaniel: Debate Highlighted By Handful Of Fierce, One-On-One Attacks
Amelia: Debate Moderators (Mostly) Avoid Health Care, And The Candidates Stay (Mostly) Polite
Geoff: No One Has Enough Bandwidth For A Debate This Week But It Went On Anyway And Nobody Particularly Shined
Clare: This Debate Was Supposed To End At 11; Buttigieg Gets The Hot Seat Treatment
Meredith: New Iowa Frontrunner, Buttigieg, Avoids a Pile-On, To Everyone’s Surprise
My Takeaways
I’m gonna talk about one of the candidates I’m focused on, Buttigieg (sorry, Steyer), plus a bit about the rest of the field. This was … a weird debate, and I’m not sure about how to gauge the overall impact. I thought Klobuchar and Booker were the strongest from the start of the night to the finish, but given their position in the polls, they probably need to generate some post-debate buzz and build some momentum over the course of the next few weeks; tonight alone won’t do that much if it doesn’t change the narrative about them. That’s doubly true for Booker, who needs a lot of help to qualify for the December debate. (Klobuchar does have a bit of traction in Iowa and has made the debate next month, by contrast.)
Buttigieg took oddly little incoming fire from the incoming candidates, except for that exchange with Gabbard at the end. I suppose that benefits him, although it’s sometimes a good thing for a candidate to seem like the center of attention, and Buttigieg didn’t seem like the center of attention tonight. I thought he was better in the second half of the debate than in the first, but I’m actually not sure it was among his stronger debates overall.
Among the top three candidates in national polls — Biden, Warren, Sanders — I personally thought Sanders had the most consistent evening. I’d note, though, that voters in our polls have consistently liked Warren’s performance in these debates, even if pundits haven’t.
As for Biden — well, it sure seemed like the typical pattern of him being reasonably good in the first half of the debate and then meandering into some very strange gaffes in the second half. But that hasn’t really hurt him in the polls so far. His performance might not do much to quiet the talk, however, from donors and party elites searching for an alternative to Biden, whether that’s someone else on the stage or someone who isn’t yet running.
Poll Bot signing off — I hope you enjoyed my bytes! And don’t forget… #PollBot4Prez
I followed Harris and Yang tonight. Harris had some strong answers on impeachment and foreign policy, but may be most remembered for attacking Gabbard over her criticism of the Democratic Party and “[spending] four years full time on Fox News criticizing President Obama.” Whereas Harris got her big bounce after the first debate by attacking Biden, this time she attacked one of the lower-tier candidates. I’m not really sure where that leaves her given her recent moves to shutter offices in places like New Hampshire to focus on Iowa, but I thought she did have an OK night. As for Yang, I think he had one of the stronger nights of any candidate on stage. The response to how he’d have his first chat with Putin was most notable, saying he’d start off by telling Putin that “I’m sorry I beat your guy.” But then the rest of his answer was cogent and sharp, which may not have been the expectation for someone without traditional presidential credentials. It’s possible Yang did what I thought he needed to do — become more than just the universal basic income guy, someone seen as a viable candidate for his party’s nomination.
Yes, Amelia, and as I hinted earlier, I had particularly expected to hear about education.
Warren’s mention of gun violence is a reminder that it that didn’t get mentioned at all tonight. Lots of new topics got introduced by the moderators, at the expense of some issues that have come up more regularly (gun violence, health care, immigration).
This is a weird thing to say, but it’s possible Sanders’s heart attack kind of humanized him. He is doing more to humanize himself in this closing statement.
Harris used the word “women” 17 times in the debate, while Buttigieg said “experience” 16 times. Also notable: no one but Biden talked about “punching.”
Sanders does something unusual in his closing statement, which is emphasizing his personal bio.
Buttigieg addresses disillusioned Republicans “who I know are watching.” I’m really not sure they are; only partisans really tune into these debates.
Biden had a pretty good first half of the debate. He was on a roll when talking about foreign policy, and, to be honest, I think he benefited from Buttigieg taking on a lot of attacks from other candidates. But he had a rough back half of the night. He had some awkward phrasing (“punching”) when talking about fighting for renewal of the Violence Against Women Act and then he appeared to forget/got mixed up with his words when he said that Carol Moseley Braun was the only black woman senator. Harris, on the stage with Biden, is obviously a black woman senator. Overall I think Biden did fine, not great.
I predicted at the beginning of the night that Warren would be at the center of a skirmish over her Medicare for All plan, and boy was I wrong! Health care really wasn’t a topic tonight. (Maybe that’s a relief for viewers who had grown used to 45-minute dives into the depths of health care policy.) Warren also didn’t feel like an especially strong presence after a lively little back-and-forth with Booker at the beginning. I’m not sure how much of a problem that is for her, though, given that tonight wasn’t a debate with a lot of fireworks generally. She didn’t do a lot to assuage voters who might be worrying she’s too liberal, but she also didn’t say much to reinforce those fears either. I do wonder, though, if her wealth tax is going to be a target of more attacks going forward — something to watch for in the next debate, maybe.
OK, this may seem like a low bar, but so far, none of the Democratic candidates look like they’re reading their closing remarks. That distinguishes them from UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who in last night’s leaders’ debate read his closing statement.
The fifth debate has been less about left vs. center and more about the different qualifications and characteristics of the candidates. My general thesis about the debates is that they’ve been equalizing, highlighting the weaknesses of the front-runners and allowing minor candidates to get their messages out. Tonight was not an exception.
I was following Gabbard and Sanders. I think the Vermont senator just restated his views of the last 30 years or so. Nothing really new. Gabbard got into interesting, very fiery exchanges with Harris and Buttigieg. Not sure if they will boost her or do much to hurt her opponents.
Well, one of my candidates won the first half of the debate, and my other candidate won the second half. (So I get to be president now, right? That’s how this works?) Klobuchar had one of the debate’s strongest moments defending her accomplishments and electability as a woman against Buttigieg. And Booker had another strong moment when he explicitly said that he understands the struggles of black voters, then attacked Biden for opposing marijuana legalization through a criminal-justice lens. And both made pitches for more moderate voters, who I think are actively searching for a candidate. I think those voters have something new to think about after tonight.
All right, we’re in the closing statements on the fifth Democratic debate. As I said earlier, I struggled to find a key takeway or breakout performance for this evening. But what were yours? And for our candidate correspondents, what stood out to you for those candidates you were assigned to watch?
Yang deserves credit for being more creative than other candidates on the debate stage. These things can be highly formulaic and he breaks the mold in a relatable way, like asking people to raise hands or, in a past debate, announcing a giveaway on stage.
Steyer is mixing a lot of true and false claims in this closing statement; he’s obviously not the only Democrat on stage to talk about corporate influence or the need for structural change.
Rosario Dawson sighting. Also, this closing statement is a reminder of what a great speechifier Booker is.
Compelling closing statement by Booker, who traces how his ability to live in a well-off neighborhood was indirectly inspired by images of Rep. John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Steyer is jettisoning the concept of persuading voters and arguing for winning through turnout. We recently talked to Nate Cohn about this on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, but according to the data, there is no good reason to believe that turning out low-propensity voters or nonvoters will necessarily help Democrats. It’s highly dependent on where in the country we are talking about, and high turnout inn the Midwest could actually hurt Democrats.
Steyer forgets that while turning out a voter simply adds one vote to your tally, persuading a voter has double the effect, since it also takes one voter from your opponent.
That was a particularly tense exchange between Buttigieg and Gabbard with Buttigieg questioning Gabbard’s judgment in meeting with Syria’s dictator Bashar Al Assad. In response to her criticism that he doesn’t have enough experience, Buttigieg said that “I have … enough judgment that I would not have sat down with a murderous dictator like that.”
I frankly don’t care about any arguments involving Gabbard, but I forgot I was your Buttigieg correspondent for the evening. Anyway, I thought he was pretty effective, and one reason that candidates might have been reluctant to engage him tonight is that he’s a fairly effective counter-puncher.
We are in extra innings, folks! The moderators aren’t cutting off this very spicy exchange between Buttigieg and Gabbard even as the clock ticks past 11 p.m.
I feel like this is a replay of the Obama-McCain debates that focused on whether it was OK to meet with dictators without pre-conditions.
Nathaniel, maybe they got a Politico alert.
It’s like everyone realized in the last 10 minutes that they forgot to attack Buttigieg.
Gabbard, when asked about voting rights, pivots to attacking Buttigieg on military policy.
Politico spoke a little too soon. Klobuchar just said Buttigieg said “all the right words” but she has the actual experience to push for expanded voting rights. Then Buttigieg comes back to basically say, What is all the Washington experience on this stage worth if nothing is happening?
“I’m like Buttigieg but experienced and electable” is a pretty good summary Klobuchar’s case to Iowa voters.
Yeah, Sarah, I wonder whether this debate will just get totally drowned out by impeachment.
This debate has been a hard one for me to follow in terms of what the narrative is for this debate. It’s currently not “above the fold” on The New York Times homepage, but I find this headline from Politico for their live analysis an interesting clue to how some of this might be framed.
Warren got pressed on that question about whether there’s room for pro-life Democrats in the party. This is an issue where labeling is tricky. According to this poll from Gallup, 29 percent of Democrats say they’re pro-life. But other polls have shown that when given the opportunity, some people will identify as pro-choice and pro-life.
This question from Maddow — is there room for the anti-abortion governor of Louisiana (who’s a Democrat) in the Democratic Party? — addresses something that was big with Sanders in the wake of the 2016 election. He supported a couple of anti-abortion Democrats in local/state elections and got a lot of pushback from parts of the party.
The debate has turned to voter suppression. According to a Pew poll from October 2018, a majority of Americans — including 91 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats — supported requiring all voters to show a government-issued photo ID to vote. Still, only 22 percent of Democrats think that “making it easier to vote would make elections less secure,” while 57 percent of Republicans feel the same way.
I was a bit tough on Warren earlier, so I should say that I think she gave a good answer on John Bel Edwards.
On some key issues, the American public has moved to the left under Trump. But there’s not much evidence that those shifts extends to abortion.
This is poll is a year or so old, but it’s long been the case — gender differences on abortion are not as pronounced as conventional wisdom suggests.
Nice to see them ask a question about the 2019 elections! On the topic of pro-life Democrats, the Democratic Attorney General Association also recently announced that they would impose a litmus test on candidates they support — they must all be pro-choice.
Worth noting that abortion is an issue that’s mostly decided at the state level. Even codifying Roe in federal law would have to go through Congress. It’s just a hard issue for a presidential candidate to address — not much you can do from the White House.
This is one of the shifts left in the Democratic Party. Even more moderate candidates, like Klobuchar, are strongly pro-choice and not using language like “safe, legal and rare” on this issue, like Bill Clinton did in 1992 in describing his abortion views.
The first question after the break is about abortion and Roe v. Wade. Here is an issue where there isn’t a lot of difference in terms of policy among the candidates, but there is room for a candidate to make this issue more central to their campaign and appeal to women voters, who say this is a top issue.
Yeah, Biden has this terrible habit of misspeaking when talking about sensitive subjects, like race. That might well have been an honest malapropism, but it will be seized on.
Biden clearly misspoke, but has been praised — and Harris has been criticized — by the first African-American woman senator, Carol Moseley Braun.
I don’t know, Perry. Clinton also won black voters handily in the 2016 primary but didn’t inspire them to turn out in huge numbers in the general. I’m not sure primary support predicts general support.
I know Biden seemed terrible in that section. His marijuana answer was odd. He seemed to forget that Harris is in the Senate right now. He suggested that he “came out of the black community.” But Biden is right on one point — it is hard for Harris and Booker to claim that they will inspire black voters in the general election while trailing Biden by like 30 points among black voters in this primary. Biden’s support among older black voters seems rock solid.