What Went Down On Night Two Of The Second Democratic Debate

OK, folks, that’s it. The second debate is over and we’ll see you in September for the third debate, which our friends at ABC News will be hosting.

Tonight we again started with a segment about health care, followed by one about immigration, but we also touched on issues of criminal justice reform along with the gender pay gap and climate change. And through it all, Biden, as the polling front-runner, remained at the center of conversation — both a foil and potential model for candidates, depending on how they’re pitching themselves to voters.

If you missed the debate or want to see how it unfolded from the beginning, start at the bottom of this live blog and keep scrolling up. But if that sounds labor-intensive — each member of the team has tried to distill tonight into a single headline. And do stay tuned as we tackle post-debate polls in the coming week to see how the second debate has changed the field and who makes (or doesn’t make) the stage in September.

Night 2 in headlines:

• Nate: Everyone Attacks Biden And He Mostly Holds Up Well — But Not Great — And Harris Is Low-Energy For Some Reason And Booker And Inslee and Yang Were Good I Guess?
• Sarah: Biden The ComeBack Kid
• Julia: Biden Was the Focal Point Of Attacks In A Wide-Ranging And Sometimes Heated Debate
• Clare: Biden Fights Back; America Asks For Shorter Debates
• Amelia: Democratic Candidates Go After Obama As Well As Trump
• Micah: The Democratic Party Is Sorta At An Interesting Moment Of Transition Maybe
• Geoffrey: Biden-Harris Round 2 Has Some Moments But Largely A Wash
• Chad: These Debates Are Going To Be Really Good Come December
• Julia: i-am-sleepy.com
• Nathaniel: Candidates Punch Up At Biden — And He Remains Standing, For Now
• Galen: The Debates Were Too Long. Few Watched. Little Changed
• Dan: Biden Does His Homework, But Nobody Really Gets Schooled

And here’s a final look at the total number of Trump mentions for the night:

That concludes the second Democratic debate. Biden finished the night with the most words spoken, followed by Harris.

Biden meant to say, “text “joe” to 30330,” right?

Final top words used!

Tonight’s debate ends after 2 hours, 47 minutes. That’s four minutes longer than last night and one minute longer than “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

Biden’s final closing pitch wasn’t creative, but it got at the fact that Democrats desperately want to get rid of Trump.

My overall look at the lower-tier candidates:

• Gabbard was poised tonight, and she also ran interference for Biden by attacking Harris’ prosecutorial record. I think she might have done enough to get three more qualifying polls for the third debate, as she will probably get 130,000 donors.
• Inslee was also bright, using his gubernatorial record to talk about real action on pardoning drug offenders and opposition to Trump’s travel ban from predominantly Muslim countries. Maybe he can get a look for VP as he’s unlikely to make the third debate.
• Gillibrand had some strong moments on health care and tried to attack Biden on past comments about women in the home, but it didn’t quite hit. Still, even if it didn’t help her, it could hurt Biden, and she too is probably on the outside looking in come September’s debate.
• Bennet did get a big applause line talking about racial inequity in schooling, but is probably on the VP train as well because he’s not making the third debate.
• Lastly, de Blasio had some good moments but he didn’t do enough to change his trajectory.

My view at the start of the night was that Booker needed to differentiate himself in a positive way from Harris and I think he did that — not with any particularly interesting strategy or by taking her on directly, but just from being fairly sharp throughout the evening when she was quite uneven. Will it move the polls? I don’t know. I think Harris might be in for a skeptical news cycle or two given that she already has lost a lot of her bounce from the first debate.

My question in our chat yesterday was whether one of the middle tier candidates could break into the top tier. Booker seems like the most obvious candidate for that – more so than Klobuchar, Buttigieg or O’Rourke, though I guess Buttigieg also had his moments yesterday. Being on the first night is a disadvantage.

Yang makes a play for the “Who am I? Why am I here?” lane.

Biden with a very strong debate performance. He got attacked by a lot of people and generally handled it very well.

Gillibrand made a pitch based on the increased polling and fundraising requirements to make the third debate. This is a reminder that these past two nights will be the last time we see of a bunch of these candidates on the debate stage.

Shorter Tulsi Gabbard:

Last night I said that Biden could be considered the winner of the debate even though he wasn’t on stage, so long as he didn’t f*** it up tonight. I stick by that.

whyyyyy the websites!

The domain name taxthehell.com seems to have been registered a few days ago, on July 28.

As the Harris correspondent tonight, I think my topline takeaway is that she’s playing in the big leagues now and she has the attacks to show for it. She got flack for her prosecutorial record, but had a sustained and detailed exchange on health care with Biden at the start of the debate. Some of my colleagues think that was too in the weeds — and it might have been — but I do think it’s a big deal that she was right on center stage physically and metaphorically tonight with Biden.

Yeah, subdued cheering for de Blasio’s “tax the hell outta the wealthy” line. He got laughs at “taxthehell.com”, though.

Did the field win tonight? Bennet got raucous applause, de Blasio landed some good blows. Not sure any of the front-runners really met expectations.

I do wonder if polling is the right measure — if candidates manage to shift the narrative around their candidacy, to turn around fundraising, or to attract organizers, maybe that’s a win, even if we never get to see it?

Taxing the rich is popular among ALL Americans. Yet de Blasio could hardly even get an applause on that.

Biden was clearly stronger tonight, although the bar after the June debate was admittedly low. But like last night, it doesn’t feel like there was a clear winner. In terms of the candidates who didn’t have such a good night — Gillibrand needed to do well, but I don’t think she landed her attack on Biden as well as she could have. That could have been a moment for her.

We were spoiled by the simple narrative that emerged from the first debates — Biden was was on the descendant, Harris was on the ascendant. Most of these debates probably don’t boil down that easily.

I don’t see a lot of polling movement happening after tonight; I think everyone did at least OK. IMO, Biden was the candidate who needed that the most — he’ll be able to hold off charges that he has lost a step. I think Booker, Castro, and Gillibrand maybe did the best. But overall, this was the kind of debate you’d want if you debated the first night and wanted that to stay in the news cycle.

I think this debate was better for political scientists than poll watchers — like last night, interesting in terms of party politics (though more tactical and less thematic and issue driven), and unlikely to result in much movement in the polls. I guess no movement in the polls is good for Biden, though I don’t think he was especially sharp.

Nate, I always tell students, better to write a really good first paper and make a good impression.

Among the lower-tier candidates, I think Gabbard may have been the strongest, though Inslee and Gillibrand had some good moments. Bennet and de Blasio did OK, but didn’t to anything to change their trajectories. Of the other candidates, I would say Booker and Yang have looked sharpest.

I guess I think the first 30 minutes established that Biden was having a good debate and Harris a bad one. I actually think it’s been much more even since then — not that Harris has been great, but Biden’s reverted from good to average. But the first 30 minutes often frames what the media takes away from the debate and I expect that will be the case again here.

OK, we’re getting close to closing statements. What’s stood out to you during Night 2? For me, I guess it was how much Biden didn’t flub or have a serious gaffe. I thought he had a good night, and I’m guessing the news cycle will reflect that, although I’m not sure it’s going to overtake Night 1.

“MOSCOW MITCH” gets a reference from Castro, who says Democrats should pursue impeachment because even if it fails in the Senate, they can say the House voted to impeach and the Senate, under McConnell, stopped it.

In response to Dan’s note about being “tough on Trump,” I am surprised that hasn’t been a more prominent theme either debate night. But I wonder if it will emerge as the debate stage shrinks in the third round.

To me, one of the big questions of the night: Can the candidates be arrayed from left to center on one dimension, or is it more complicated? By leading the impeachment charge, Booker is opening a tough-on-Trump dimension …

I wonder if any candidates will turn to the election security issues raised by Mueller’s report. That was what Mueller seemed more concerned about in his testimony.

Booker supports opening an impeachment inquiry. Many Democrats, but the majority of Americans, don’t:

I think Booker’s expanding his lead on the rest of the field in terms of who’s been the sharpest tonight. That’s not quite the same as saying whose chances of winning have gone up the most, to which I’d probably still say Biden.

Booker correctly points out that the impeachment caucus has been growing by the day.

Booker says the Congress should start impeachment proceedings. Interesting to see how Biden may respond.

Trump’s name is coming up less tonight than it did last night. Here’s tonight, so far:

And here’s last night:

This is a good question. It is not consistent for the Democratic candidates to say their Department of Justice would definitely charge Trump when they’ve been criticizing Trump for interfering with DOJ.

Harris should not have said that her DOJ would prosecute Trump. She is backing out of that stance now.

Kinda tough question from Lemon.

It’s fascinating to see a foreign policy debate turn on Iraq War support and not experience, especially since we have lots of people on this stage who are thin on relevant experience.

For any readers out there who live in or around Detroit, the politics podcast crew is gonna be recording a live show in downtown Detroit tomorrow night. Get your tickets! It’s gonna be fun!

Biden finally acknowledges having made a bad decision — but like Perry says, he doesn’t take responsibility, blaming it on believing President Bush.

Well, he *sorta* apologized but said it was Bush’s fault for deceiving him.

Biden won’t even say his Iraq War vote was wrong. He. Does. Not. Apologize.

Feeling very 2007 primary up in here with Inslee talking his anti-Iraq war vote.