“We cannot afford for a Republican to succeed President Obama as president of the United States,” Clinton said. And she mentioned Republicans a lot in this debate — more than all the other candidates combined. She mentioned them 15 of 27 times they came up by name: “Republican” or “Republicans.” (We’re not counting Chafee’s references to his prior membership in the Republican Party.) One of many ways Clinton projected the confidence of a front-runner in the debate was by using it to start making her general-election case — by focusing on the other major party as much as she focused on her opponents for the Democratic nomination.
Nate Silver
Thanks to the demise of Intrade, betting markets are less robust this year than they were four years ago. But the betting market PredictIt has Clinton’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination up by about 3 percentage points after the debate tonight, while Sanders’s number is unchanged. Clinton’s gains come from Joe Biden, who the market now regards as less likely to run. All of this sounds fairly reasonable — I’ll have more to say a bit later tonight.
Leah Libresco
Clinton scandals were the subject of as many questions as immigration policy. But, as Planned Parenthood announced today that it will cease taking payments for fetal tissue donations, not a single question about abortion was asked.
