What Went Down In The Fourth Democratic Debate

Tonight, I’m also following Warren.

This is the first debate Warren enters as a perceived national front-runner. Whether she’s the front-runner or whether a front-runner is a matter of some dispute; our view is that she and Biden are best thought of as co-front-runners. But, anyway, being perceived as a front-runner has both benefits (she’ll undoubtedly get a lot of speaking time; the media will pay a lot of attention to her performance) and risks (she might get asked tougher questions; other candidates will be more prone to attack her).

In other respects, though, this is a somewhat low-stakes debate for Warren. Biden will occupy a central position as he tries to address Ukraine — I’m not your Biden correspondent, but I think there’s a fair amount of upside for Biden if he’s effective in a forceful denunciation of Trump and/or a forceful call for impeachment — while Sanders will be trying to demonstrate his vigor and health after his recent heart attack. Meanwhile, there are 12 candidates on stage, some of whom will be pretty desperate for attention.

So to some extent, Warren can probably just lean back and be herself, and avoid getting drawn into too many risky confrontations. Democrats rated Warren’s performance strongly after the September debate in our poll with Ipsos, and while that’s not a huge sample size, there’s no particular reason to think they won’t do so again.

The trickiest strategic choice might come if Sanders attacks her from the left, e.g. for calling herself a capitalist. My guess is that Warren might have more to gain than to lose by conceding, in a careful way, that Sanders is to her left; it could make her seem like a more acceptable choice to center-left voters who currently prefer Biden, and there are a greater number of Biden voters than Sanders voters right now. (Many voters say they’re considering her now.) It might also help with electability perceptions, to the extent that voters (with some justification) perceive moderate candidates to be more “electable.”

Before tonight’s debate kicks off, take a look back at some of our staff’s favorite debate moments from the past:

Tonight, I’ll be keeping tabs on co-front-runner Joe Biden and “congresswoman-who-almost-didn’t-show-up-to-this-debate” Tulsi Gabbard (more on her strategic beef with the Democratic National Committee in a moment).

Let me first start with Biden, whose campaign I profiled a couple of weeks ago, since this debate could be especially important for him. It will be the first one since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into whether President Trump improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter. The former vice president has found himself at the center of attacks from Trump in recent weeks, and while the Bidens aren’t accused of any wrongdoing, charges of nepotism aren’t necessarily a flattering look in the midst of a heated race.

At this stage, though, Biden is still doing pretty well in the polls. Yes, he and Warren are now pretty much neck-and-neck, hence “co-front-runner” status. But as editor-in-chief Nate Silver wrote on Monday, Biden’s polling numbers haven’t really taken a hit, even as the Ukraine affair has unspooled and Warren’s polling has climbed.

However, debates have sometimes proved messy for Biden. He’s not necessarily the most forceful orator or presence on stage. And while it remains to be seen how much his fellow Democrats will want to bring up Hunter Biden’s association with a Ukrainian company — seems likely they won’t, but never say die — that could create some awkward moments for Biden. I’ll also be watching to see how he addresses impeachment in general. As I wrote in my new column, The Spin Cycle, which tracks the political implications of the impeachment inquiry, Biden explicitly called for the president to be removed from office last week. It’s the first time he’s done this, and it feels like a crossed Rubicon of sorts. I’ll also pay attention to see how he addresses the threat Warren’s campaign poses — perhaps direct attacks on her agenda and “electability”? — and how he responds to any implications of his age being a discomfiting factor for voters. Given Sanders’s health problems and the septuagenarian status of all three front-runners, none of whom have released their medical records (but have pledged to do so), it’s a question that may well come up.

OK, now Gabbard. Thought she met the debate criteria, Gabbard released a video last week in which she threatened not to attend the debate because the “DNC and the corporate media are essentially trying to usurp your role as voters.” She went on to say, “they’re holding so-called debates which really are not debates at all, but rather commercialized reality television.” On Monday morning, she seemed to backtrack and tweeted out simply, “I will be attending the debate.” But Gabbard’s (perhaps stunt-y) gambit fits, in many ways, with her campaign. An avid Sanders supporter in 2016, Gabbard has embraced an outsider ethos. And her rhetoric that places media organizations and the governing organs of the Democratic Party as co-conspirators of sorts has made her campaign admired in unexpected corners: former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and former Rep. Ron Paul have both praised her campaign.

Who knows the direction tonight’s questions — and attacks from fellow candidates — will take, but Gabbard could make a splash (and not in a good way) on Trump’s recent decision to pull troops out of Syria. In 2017, Gabbard met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and has faced relentless criticism for her decision to do so. Seems like that might come up tonight, though Gabbard, we should note, has criticized Trump’s decision to pull out troops.