The second night of the Democratic debate is in the books, with Sen. Kamala Harris the clear winner, and former Vice President Joe Biden the loser based in part on Harris’ powerful case against Biden’s history on school busing. Harris offered a string of the debate’s best moments, but also a commanding, composed presence throughout.
Biden’s weakness wasn’t just about Harris, though. Sen. Michael Bennet also landed a blow, about Biden’s part in the Obama administration’s bad deal with then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over the 2012 fiscal cliff. Beyond that, Biden whiffed a question about his vote for the Iraq War, a question he was 99% certain to get. And rumors were flying about his staff’s unhappiness with his performance.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the other frontrunner in this debate, fared a little better than Biden. If a frontrunner’s desire in a debate is to win by not losing, Sanders accomplished that, and of course the ideas he promoted during and since his 2016 candidacy continue to shape the Democratic policy debate. But Sanders has not developed much, if at all, as a candidate since 2016, and he was just kind of … there in this debate. If you like Sanders, you saw exactly the lines that inform that affection. If you’re undecided or don’t like him, you saw nothing new to change your mind. And the very lack of serious moves against him by other candidates could be seen to place him on the sidelines.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg had a solid debate performance, though his crucially important response to a question about the recent killing of a black man by a police officer in South Bend, Indiana, did not have the impact it was designed to have. And that was the problem: Buttigieg knew he would get that question, and he over-rehearsed his answer, down to the quirks in his mouth as he spoke. While Harris had clearly prepared her comments about Biden, segregationists, and busing, it retained a sense of immediacy, authenticity, and emotional charge that Buttigieg couldn’t summon. Still, on the whole, Buttigieg had one of the debate’s solid performances, neither dramatically building on nor undermining his spring breakout.
Sens. Michael Bennet and Kirsten Gillibrand both had some notably good moments in solid performances, but in neither case achieved a breakout. Rep. Eric Swalwell, by contrast, probably hurt himself with this chance to introduce himself as a candidate—he was working way too hard to establish that he is part of a younger generation that should be taking up the torch, and his efforts to establish his youth and his regular-guy knowledge as the father of young children were strained and repetitive. Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, too, was a candidate who went in weak and probably came out weaker, his efforts to position himself at the right of the field having less force and clarity than, of all people, Rep. John Delaney on the debate’s first night.
And then there were Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson, the two candidates with no electoral history. Yang was there. Williamson was out there. The self-help and spirituality guru’s performance was at times forceful, at times discombobulated, and overall the sort of thing that would have seemed like a delightfully loopy distraction if we hadn’t seen a reality TV star similarly disconnected from concrete policies end up in the White House after the last elections.
Because Kamala Harris is a woman, and a black woman at that, she immediately came under attack for having been too forceful, with Biden’s campaign working hard to further those claims. But because Harris is the person we saw in the debate, she’s pushing back effectively. And we’ve now watched two nights of debate won by women, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren having walked away with the first night (which also included a breakout performance by former HUD Secretary Julián Castro).
