What Went Down On Night One Of The Second Democratic Debate

OK, folks, that’s it. Night one of the second debate is in the books! We started off talking about health care and had an incisive debate over “Medicare for All” vs. “Medicare for all who want it” vs. more incremental health care plans, and we even hit on questions of electability!

If you missed the debate or want to relive it in all its glory, start at the bottom of this live blog and keep scrolling up. But if that sounds tiresome — although I promise it’s not that bad — each member of the team has tried to distill tonight’s key moments and takeaways into a single headline. And do come back tomorrow — we’re back at 7:30 p.m. for night two!

Without further ado, night one in headlines:

Nate: In Fiery Debate, Democrats Battle For The Soul Of The Party

Clare: Debate More Substantive Than Expected; Too Long

Julia: Democrats Divided On Medicare For All

Amelia: Democrats Battle Over Big Ideas And Practical Solutions

Nathaniel: Moderates Line Up Against Progressives In Substantive Debate

Geoffrey: Democrats Disagree On Many Issues — Except Beating Trump

Micah: Democrats Divide On How Much Change You Can And Should Believe In

CNN already has a countdown clock to tomorrow night’s debate. See y’all tomorrow …

Bleep bloop …

Goodnight, humans. I’ll be back with more polls tomorrow night.

Warren had a strong performance. For instance, she may have had the line of the night by shooting down a Delaney attack by asking why someone would run for president if they don’t have big ideas and plans. Warren has been firm and aggressive in defense of her progressive views, continuing to use the word “fight” over and over again when describing how she’ll take on Trump and change the country.

I don’t think she’s going to necessarily rocket up further in the polls, but she’s positioned herself to be a strong contender for the nomination heading into the fall.

Well, at the start of the night I had the following set of goals for Buttigieg.

And I’m not sure he accomplished any of them. Several of the lower-polling candidates were pretty effective in stealing his thunder. Warren and Sanders managed to have their share of good, interesting moments despite not really tangling with one another. And while Buttigieg tried to weave a careful course in between the moderates and the liberals, it wasn’t particularly effective given that CNN’s frame of the night was playing up the conflict between the two wings. For all that said, he wasn’t bad, except for the answer about the racial divide, and he’s not one of the candidates who needed to have a great debate since he’s safely on stage for the 3rd debate.

Overall, I think Klobuchar and O’Rourke didn’t have the nights that they might have wanted. Instead of positioning her self as the moderate rebutter to Warren and Sanders, Klobuchar sort of ceded ground. She didn’t talk as much as Delaney (which might have been a moderator problem, to be honest), but when she did she didn’t connect her legislative and systemic takes to the lives of voters. So, in some ways, she had a failure of communication, which isn’t a great thing on a debate stage.

O’Rourke had a better night than the last debate where he was routed on key immigration messages by Castro. I think he does better when he’s responding to another candidate, getting in the fray, not when he’s doing his stump speech. So, he didn’t hurt himself and that’s good — perhaps an underrated thing for him, given the critiques he’s gotten lately.

And here’s the final count of Trump mentions for tonight:

Of the lower-polling candidates, I thought Bullock and Delaney were strong in pushing more moderate views. Bullock, in particular, I thought made a real impression in his first debate.

Williamson was Williamson — I don’t think she will gain much in the polls, and I don’t expect to see her on the debate stage again.

Ryan, to me, didn’t make much of an impression. And Hickenlooper just said very little. I would not be surprised if he drops out of the race soon.

My bottom line–I’m not sure whether any of these five will surge in the polls or be on the debate stage in September. But I think both Bullock and Delaney have succeeded in pushing the Democratic 2020 debate to the center. And I think there’s an outside chance that Bullock actually gets a look from the party.

I was watching Bernie Sanders tonight, and I thought he was one of tonight’s stronger debaters. He did especially well in the health-care segment, where he had some killer lines.

Other economic segments also fell in his wheelhouse, and I thought he represented the progressive wing of the party well in spats with Hickenlooper and Ryan. He wasn’t afraid to get feisty with the moderates, but on the other hand, that’s never been his problem.

I do think he continues to miss opportunities by not attacking those higher than him in the polls — Biden for sure, and maybe Warren and Harris as well.

Here’s the final count for words spoken:

OK, candidate correspondents — you’re final take on who you were tasked with watching tonight. What did you make of your candidate’s strategy and performance?

And the debate ends after 2 hours and 43 minutes. That is 1 minute longer than the movie “Avatar.”

Guys, did you know that Mayor Pete is young?

Ryan’s and Hickenlooper’s final statements were in keeping with the rest of their performance: mostly awkward and not very memorable.

Williamson said she was “qualified” to do the things she’s promising in her closing statement. Worth remembering that women generally have to do more to convince voters they’re qualified for the job. Klobuchar also emphasized her qualifications throughout her closing statement. This is a hurdle men generally don’t have to face when they run.

This debate seemed less candidate-centric than I think some of the folks up there had hoped. We heard some stories about people’s backgrounds, lineage and political accomplishments. But in a big field it’s hard to distinguish yourself that way, so some real questions emerged — the need for structural reform, need for systemic change in health care and other issues, the alternatives to the progressive visions of Warren and Sanders.

OK I guess I’m just being super Halperin-y about it because it’s late and we’re too tired to write entire paragraphs, so I’d say basically this (purely from a performance standpoint, not a prediction of how much how much it will move the polls):

GOOD: Williamson, Warren, Bullock

PRETTY GOOD: Bernie, Delaney

OK: Buttigieg

MEH-PLUS: Klobuchar, Ryan

MEH-MINUS: O’Rourke, Hickenlooper

Some of the pre-debate discussion focused on a potential moderate vs. progressive battle in this debate. And we actually saw a lot of that, with Warren and Sanders working in tandem at times to defend their more aggressive policy stances for addressing America’s challenges while Delaney became the moderate criticizer-in-chief and got much more attention that one might have anticipated, especially given his standing in the polls.

So far in this campaign, Warren and Sanders have avoided taking on each other — and tonight was a continuation of that. The debate also featured lively disagreements on health care, immigration and the economy, and was in my opinion a more substantive debate than the first event in June.

By the way, if you are looking for more debate coverage, Nate and I are gonna record a podcast here in Detroit after this debate wraps.

I think the health-care exchange was the gold standard for all debates. As for the candidates, I think Delaney/Sanders did well, Warren/Williamson/Bullock/Ryan had some good moments, and O’Rourke/Buttigieg/Hickenlooper/Klobuchar did poorly.

One thing that stood out to me — we didn’t have any questions about gender issues. Nothing on abortion, the pay gap, child care. Obviously you can’t cover everything in a debate, but it’s a notable omission.

OK, it’s closing statement time. What have folks made of of candidates’ performances tonight? Or if that doesn’t stand out to you, what about the topics covered?

“I’ve made it about four blocks in life” is not a bad line.

We’re nearing the end of tonight’s debate. Here’s an update on words spoken: Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg haven’t budged from the top three.

I think Buttigieg has been a bit more visible in the second half, at least, and probably had a better night than Klobuchar or Beto.

I’m not sure how I feel about Buttigieg’s direct-to-camera moment.

This is pretty nonresponsive to the question about age from Sanders. And to be honest, it plays into some stereotypes of 75+ people insofar as they tend to repeat themselves a lot.

I think that was a pretty good moment for Buttigieg — he got a nice applause line and attacked Republicans for aiding and abetting the president. He also spoke straight into the camera in a way few have tonight.

To sum up the age question: Shorter Buttigieg: Yes. Shorter Bernie: No.

Cool, we’re gonna answer this question about age without saying anything meaningful about age at all.

Jacinda-mania makes its SECOND appearance in as many Democratic debates.

Don Lemon just throws the generational warfare bomb!

AGE!!! Another favorite Nate topic!

Not to pick on you, Nate, but that gets to the very heart of electability and gender and race and who is most “presidential”!

IMO, Bullock looks the most like an actor who would play the part of the president in a movie.

This is the dilemma with nuclear weapons use, right? On one hand, of course it should never be U.S. policy to strike first with nuclear weapons. On the other hand, you can’t SAY that out loud, because that removes your deterrence of other countries.

I’m sure, Micah! I just think the wording was interesting for a presidential candidate. It was kind of a blanket statement.

Clare, that’s probably pretty popular?

Hickenlooper’s impassioned argument for having American troops all over the world is not something you’ve heard form either party in the Trump era.

O’Rourke basically just called for an end to all wars.

I think this speaks to how well Delaney has used his time.

Seeing as Biden has about 25 percent of the support out there, I think movement among the other candidates will depend most on whether he moves up or down after tomorrow night’s debate. At first blush, though, I don’t see much of a change coming for Sanders and Warren, up or down.

I think Warren had the higher highs than Sanders. I think Sanders also had a good debate. But he tends not to move up or down very much in the polls after debates, and I think his strengths were mostly in the form doing an especially good job of articulating the arguments that he usually makes and which aren’t winning over a terribly large number of voters so far.

OK, so … do we think Warren has had a strong performance and will continue to see her poll numbers climb like she did after the first debate? Or do we think maybe Sanders sees a bounce in the polls this time around? Or … maybe everything that happens tomorrow negates what happened today?!

I just think step one to getting support is getting people to recognize you, and Delaney did that tonight. He probably doesn’t stand a real chance as long as Biden is in the race, but what if Biden implodes tomorrow?

Friendly amendment to Nate’s screen time metric. I mentioned this earlier, but making a candidate who’s polling better and has better name recognition respond to your point is also a victory.
Agenda-setting, if you will.

I think I’m with Nate — screen time is one thing, but viral video clips are another, and Williamson seems likely to have done well on that metric.

I think the challenge for the lower-level candidates in this debate is that it’s unclear if there’s any room for another major candidate. So even if Delaney has had a good night, I seriously doubt he’s about to jump to 10 percent or something. Really, the three candidates on stage tonight who had a chance to make progress into a higher tier were Buttigieg, O’Rourke and Klobuchar. I don’t really think they’ve done that. Bullock is a bit of a wild card, though, because we haven’t seen him — and neither have most Democrats.

Yasiel Puig is reportedly going from the Cincinnati Reds to the Cleveland Indians in that trade Nate mentioned. This is relevant to the debate because …