The Democratic Debate, which airs Friday, will be a chance for the candidates to go head-to-head before New Hampshire votes in their primary. After the messy Iowa caucuses, this is an opportunity for the candidates to prove themselves and capitalize on their momentum. Here’s what you need to know.
The debate will air Friday at 8 PM Eastern time, or 5 PM on the West Coast. The debate will be aired nationally on ABC so that curious voters can tune in and find out where the candidates fall on the issue. Presently, the Democratic field is split between left-leaning candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and centrists like Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden.
Iowa’s caucus results, which were messy, chaotic, and slow to report due to an app malfunction, showed a tight race between local Buttigieg and Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders. Sanders slid by with a few thousand more raw votes than Buttigieg, though it appears both candidates may leave Iowa with a split number of state delegate equivalents.
The debate will be moderated by ABC anchors George Stephanopoulos, David Muir and Linsey Davis. On stage, candidates Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang will be debating. Warren left Iowa in third place after the caucuses, and Biden was dealt a serious blow, coming in with very few raw votes and no state delegate equivalents.
Steyer, Yang and Klobuchar also had single-digit showings in Iowa, which makes this New Hampshire debate a pivotal moment for all of their campaigns. With Sanders emerging as a clear contender for the nomination, the clock may be running out for lesser-known candidates to increase their profile and entice undecided democratic voters.
Notably, Democratic candidates Deval Patrick, Mike Bloomberg, Tulsi Gabbard and Michael Bennett didn’t make the cut for the New Hampshire debate. On-stage debaters were chosen by one of two criteria by the DNC: either by winning at least one delegate during the Iowa contest or by meeting a polling and grassroots funding threshold.
This means that those candidates will have a very difficult time getting a higher number of people to know their names and their platforms going into the New Hampshire primaries.
