What Went Down On Night One Of The First Democratic Debates

Castro! I did not expect him to own the stage as much as he already has.

I am gonna offer the unoriginal answer of Castro, for the second segment. He got to set the agenda for the immigration discussion.

To answer Nate’s “who stood out in the second segment?” question: I’m in charge of watching Beto tonight, and I think he’s been one of the most articulate candidates so far. But he failed his biggest test of the night so far — that exchange with Castro.

Gabbard had a good bit on avoiding war with Iran, but as Rakich pointed out, that’s not exactly a big deal to voters — until it happens of course. Castro had a number of strong comments on immigration, so I think he probably won out, if anyone did.

Most Democratic activists don’t want to see Tulsi Gabbard become the Democratic nominee, according to a survey conducted by FiveThirtyEight contributer (and fellow live blogger) Seth Masket. (The same is true for self-help author Marianne Williamson.)

So, in terms of which candidates did well in that second segment, there wasn’t that much overlap with the first one. I thought Castro and maybe … Gabbard? were the ones that stood out the most.

Absolutely a fair point, Clare.

Klobuchar’s “bathrobe” barb is her third potentially-viral line, after “all foam no beer” and “three women on this stage.” It looks like she’s done well at preparing for meme-ification.

I wonder if Warren isn’t sensitive, Geoffrey, to seeming shrill. I’m betting the women on stage are a lot more sensitive to how the TV audience might receive them if they get too argue-y.

Warren has gone quiet for a bit here, and hasn’t jumped in either.

Immigration is really a fascinating issue in American politics and this debate is no exception. It’s divided both parties internally for the last several decades, but it’s obviously much more of a partisan split now. The candidates are all embracing positions that would be considered “liberal” on immigration, but again they are going in different directions. Some are talking about the causes of migration, from Central America in particular. Candidates are also discussing very specific policy provisions, as well as other elements of the question, like ICE and the role of corporations in the immigration situation. Klobuchar went with a very standard piece of language – seen in both Republican and Democratic party platforms in the 1980s and 1990s – about how immigrants make the country stronger. Ryan went very specific and spoke about delivering health care to kids at the border. In other words, there are a lot of dimensions of immigration – it’s a deeply symbolic issue but also one that’s linked to other issues and mired in decades of complex law. The candidates are a bit subtle in their specific policy disagreements, but they’re aiming for very different framing.

Gabbard gets a laugh, calling Trump’s cabinet (did she mean foreign policy advisors?) “chicken hawks.”

If we aren’t too late on this, the Economist had a really nice piece breaking down the economic data on refugees. Basically, if the president threatens to send them to your state, you should probably take him up on the offer.

Klobuchar basically the only candidate to make any attempts at humor tonight, which is something that’s going to become more and more necessary after we watch another 22 of these things.

This is Gabbard’s opportunity, just like immigration was Castro’s.

The rest of the candidates raise their hands when the moderators ask whether they want to get back into the Iran nuclear deal. Booker doesn’t raise his hand, when he asks to expand, he says he thinks it was a good deal but as president, would want to see if he could do better. Seems to me like he just wanted to get some more time to talk…

Iran is an important subject. But its not clear that the candidates have any real policy differences.

As Savannah seemed to emphasize, the candidates were not being specific about their plans for dealing with an increase in apprehensions at the border and immigrants already in the country illegally. That is no surprise. They talk a lot about being opposed to what Trump does because they know it’s unpopular, but they haven’t figured out a position that has broad appeal for both the base and average Democrats or general election voters. It will be interesting to see whether that changes at all in the coming months. Will more candidates put out specific immigration plans?

Geoffrey, I think it will also be a good chance for people to take a bathroom break. Voters just don’t vote on foreign policy.

An Ipsos/Reuters poll conducted in May found that 76 percent of Democrats support the 2015 deal that then-President Barack Obama reached with Iran to prevent the development of Iranian nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions on the country. Thirteen percent of Democrats oppose the deal. Fifty-five percent of Republicans also support the deal, while only 34 percent oppose it, bringing overall support among all registered voters to 64 percent and opposition to 23 percent.

I hope the Iran segment is a good chance to remind people that foreign policy is often the most consequential thing a president has influence over.

I agree with Seth — candidates often get in trouble when they try to be political strategists, from Romney’s “47% comment” to Obama’s point about people “clinging” to religion and guns. So tonight has been refreshingly substantive so far.

As your Klobuchar Correspondent, I basically think she should be acting more like Inslee and Delaney, in terms of talking directly from their experience and what they’ve accomplished.

Inslee wants to make sure we know he’s a governor.

As a governor, Inslee has executive accomplishments he can talk up when it comes to immigration, like the Dream Act he helped pass in Washington.

For the first time in the debate, O’Rourke leads in words spoken, passing Warren.

Booker is making the argument that immigrant families who are in the U.S. illegally should be dealt with through the civil rather than criminal system. Castro looks like he’s eager to jump in again…

Like Ryan, Booker also invokes Castro in his answer. I think it’s good for your campaign when other candidates are holding you up as the standard on an issue.

I thought it was a very…. alpha move by Castro to interrupt Beto on immigration, since they’re probably the two candidates on the stage who can claim to have the most leadership on the issue. To some extent, the remaining candidates are struggling to differentiate themselves on immigration after that exchange.

That was a fairly complicated, in the weeds policy discussion. But it was useful, in that Castro pushed for a detailed discussion about immigration policy, instead of the candidates just saying vague things about how Trump is bad and that kids should not be in cages.

This debate so far has been extremely substantive. There’s been only modest reference to Trump, no real reference to horse race, polls, Biden, etc.

Ryan is somehow the first person to specifically say something about the president in the conversation on immigration, right?

Here is a good Vox explainer on this disagreement between making illegal immigration a crime and a civil offense.

In a nut shell, it boils down to this. If you’re an unauthorized immigrant in the U.S., you’re committing a civil violation because you’re in the U.S .without a valid immigration status. That’s breaking a law, but it’s not a crime, in the same way that violating the speed limit isn’t a crime. If you’re arrested, you can be deported — a huge change to an immigrant’s life, but again, not technically a criminal punishment. As Vox wrote, “But if you cross the US/Mexico border between ports of entry without papers, you are committing a federal misdemeanor: illegal entry. And you can be jailed and fined in addition to getting deported.”

Rakich, it sounds like that’s the case. Previously it was only Castro and Warren who supported decriminalizing crossing the border.

Seems like Klobuchar is trying to change conversation from immigration as a human issue to one more about the economy.

Tim Ryan might have just come out in favor of decriminalizing border crossings?

The Washington Post has been keeping track of the issues the 2020 candidates have been mentioning on their social media accounts. The analysis is a window into what the candidates are prioritizing. In some cases, the analysis is predictable — the Texans in the race, O’Rourke and Castro, are leading the way on immigration posts.

Castro has to be careful about “title this” and “title that” — it will lose a lot of people. But I don’t believe we’ve heard Biden’s name once in the first 45 minutes, by the way.

For being one of the four high-polling candidates in the middle of the stage, Klobuchar has been overlooked tonight. (Granted, it’s still early.)

OK, Castro was doing too much there for a sec. He needs to let people answer.

I guess the risk in interrupting is that you look too thirsty, and I’m not sure that de Blasio has the timing down. But, yeah, he has no reason to be risk-averse since he’s at like 0.001 percent in the polls, so he may as well take some chances.

Castro is getting a lot of time here. And he’s critical of O’Rourke, calling him “Beto.”

De Blasio seems to have clearly made a decision to be uber-aggresive, even at the risk of starting conflicts with other candidates — smart strategy?

Castro calls out O’Rourke by name now, which I think is the first direct attack on another candidate of the night?

Remember when a 2016 GOP debate got lively over the question of whether Marco Rubio should use Spanish? The GOP debate this is not …

I think Castro is having a good night. He’s detailed in his answers on immigration and he’s doing a good job of actually interjecting and debating with O’Rourke on policy.

Castro is bringing it on this issue. As the only Latino candidate in this race, he didn’t have to do this, but he has decided to make immigration one of his signature issues.

This debate is being broadcast by NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo. Two-thirds of Latinos identify as Democrats.

Several candidates can answer in Spanish, but the next level challenge is taking questions in Spanish too.

The two Texas candidates, who have also been the two most specific on immigration, are speaking over each other on the topic right now