Tonight’s Democratic debate: the biggest winners and losers
After some very close and very screwy results in the Iowa caucus this week, the top seven Democratic presidential candidates took the stage and faced something of a new alignment. So how did they each fare? Here’s a look at the winners, the losers, and more:
Winner: Pete Buttigieg. The first half of tonight’s debate went far better for him than the second half. But the reality was that he had a target on his back tonight as a result of his win (or near-win) in Iowa, and he still managed to pull off some of the most impactful moments of the night. His big moment: shooting down the moderator’s absurd question about Joe Biden being a liability as a candidate just because Donald Trump made up a fake Biden scandal.
Winner: Joe Biden. The Iowa caucus represented a voting demographic and a voting format that couldn’t be much further removed from Biden’s strengths, so it wasn’t surprising that he finished poorly there. He’s still leading the national polling averages, he’s competitive in New Hampshire, and he’s set to dominate in South Carolina. But the media is painting him as being on the ropes, so he had to passionately come out swinging tonight – and he did. This was Biden’s best debate performance, and it was (just barely) enough to keep the “sky is falling” headlines at bay for his campaign.
Winner: Amy Klobuchar. Her campaign has never gotten as much attention as the flashier candidacies in the race, yet she turned in yet another solid debate performance. She’s been consistently strong on the debate stage. Now that the field is thinning, will she finally get her due?
Wildcard: Tom Steyer. We’ve all thought of Steyer as a pointless also-ran candidate who wasn’t going to get anywhere. He did very poorly in Iowa. But he’s now polling in a distant second in South Carolina. If these numbers are accurate, then it could point to Steyer having a decent showing on Super Tuesday, thus keeping him in the race for awhile. We’re guessing the moderators gave Steyer so much airtime tonight because of his strong South Carolina poll numbers, but we’d rather have heard more from Elizabeth Warren, who is polling much higher than Steyer nationally.
Loser: The moderators. Several of these questions were misrepresentations of the candidates’ positions on the issues. At best, the moderators didn’t fully do their homework. At worst, they were trying to drum up ratings by asking dishonest questions. Not a good look for ABC tonight.
Loser: Elizabeth Warren. She’s won several of these debates, and she’s never lost any of them – until tonight. Her answers were all strong as usual. The trouble was that she didn’t have nearly the impact tonight that she usually has. Fault the moderators for not giving her as much airtime as her poll numbers warrant. But she needed to make an impact tonight after being a non-factor in Iowa, and it didn’t happen.
Loser: Andrew Yang. He seemed to take the position that if the next administration criminally prosecutes Donald Trump, it’ll turn the United States into a banana republic. But when the moderator asked if that meant Trump should get a pass for his crimes, Yang seemed to realize he’d backed himself into a corner. In any case, his candidacy will likely be over soon, despite the strong passion of his fairly narrow support base.
