'Gloves will be off': Nevada debate could be pivotal for Democrats
The Democratic presidential debate in Nevada will bring together six candidates days before the state’s caucuses and could be a make-or-break moment for some campaigns.
Facing off in Las Vegas on Wednesday evening are Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar; the former vice-president Joe Biden; the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, Pete Buttigieg; and the former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The debate comes one week after Sanders won the New Hampshire primary, setting the stage for a primary battle between the Vermont senator and the more moderate candidates fighting his momentum. On the heels of a strong performance in the messy Iowa caucuses, Buttigieg came in a close second in New Hampshire, where Klobuchar’s unexpected surge won her third place, and Warren and Biden both experienced disappointing results.
The February results make Saturday’s Nevada caucus a high-stakes race for many of the candidates, and the debate is providing the final opportunity for them to make their pitch on national TV.
Related: Bellwether caucuses: diverse Nevada is a crucial test for Democrats
“The pressure is building here and the gloves are going to be off,” said Fred Lokken, a political science professor at Truckee Meadows community college in Reno.
Sanders is likely to become a target of many of the candidates given his frontrunner status, similar to the way Biden was a magnet for criticism in the early debates last year, Lokken predicted.
Centrist candidates such as Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Biden are expected to make the pitch to Nevada voters that they are the best “mainstream alternative”, said Eric Herzik, political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. “Style points are really going to start counting, because this is how the media is covering it.”
Klobuchar had several breakout moments at the last debate in New Hampshire, including a fierce argument that Buttigieg, as a 38-year-old former mayor, lacks the experience to be president. The strong performance may have played a role in her surprise third-place win days later, and some are looking to see whether she can break through again on the stage in Vegas. Both centrist candidates from the midwest will need to broaden their coalitions as they head to states like Nevada that are significantly more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire.
Nevada is nearly 30% Latino and 10% black and has become increasingly Democratic in recent years. The state also has a strong record of supporting women in office, which could factor into the dynamics of the debate and caucuses. Both US senators in Nevada are women, and the state was the first in the country to have a majority-female legislature.
With the longshot candidate Andrew Yang out of the race, the debate will once again feature an all-white lineup.
For Warren, the debate is a critical opportunity to rebuild the momentum she has lost after surging in polls last year. And the gaffe-prone Biden, who is hoping for a rebound in Nevada and South Carolina, is in a particularly precarious position.
The wild card on stage will be Bloomberg, the New York billionaire who entered the race late last year and has been climbing in polls after spending more on TV and online ads than any candidate in US political history. He will probably also be a target at the debate, especially following escalating scrutiny of his “stop-and-frisk” policing strategy that disproportionately targeted black and Latinos for years. Bloomberg’s campaign also recently attacked Sanders with a new ad, while the senator has increasingly criticized the former mayor on the campaign trail, telling supporters: “We are a democracy, not an oligarchy.”
This is the first time Bloomberg has qualified for the debate, made possible by the Democratic National Committee’s controversial decision to remove the requirement that candidates have a certain number of individual donors. Bloomberg, who is self-funding his campaign, is not known as a charismatic politician, and the debate will be a test of whether he can attract voters outside of his scripted ads and exorbitant spending.
With fewer candidates than in many previous debates, the event is an opportunity to have more in-depth policy discussions. Voters in Nevada have rated healthcare as a No 1 concern, Lokken said, adding that he hoped there was a discussion of immigration policy, considering Nevada’s large population of undocumented people and Dreamers.
The debate, hosted by NBC News and MSNBC, is at the Paris Theater and starts at 6pm local time.
