On Politics: Las Vegas Doesn’t Disappoint

February 20, 2020

By Lisa Lerer

Politics Newsletter Writer

Good morning. Welcome to On Politics, where we’re breaking down last night’s debate.

I’ve seen my fair share of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” I’ve indulged in a little “Real World.” And who among us can resist those Real Housewives?

But nothing prepared me for that Democratic debate last night.

So. Much. Drama.

Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg had some serious Midwestern beef. Senator Elizabeth Warren embraced her “warrior wonk,” going after everyone on the stage. Former Vice President Joe Biden even squeezed in a final attack on Senator Bernie Sanders during his closing statement.

And it was open season on former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the newcomer to the debate, with the entire field at one point arguing over whether billionaires like him should even “exist.”

There were so many attacks, happening so very fast, that at moments the candidates seemed to be exploding off the stage, waving their hands desperately to be called on.

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

After months of mostly collegial debates, we have officially hit a new phase in this race. Iowa and New Hampshire are over. Early voting is underway in a number of other states, including Texas and California. In less than two weeks, we’ll have results from 16 more primaries.

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Based on his current numbers and the crowded state of the field, Mr. Sanders is headed toward winning enough delegates on Super Tuesday to gain an all but insurmountable lead for the party nomination.

None of the attacks last night seemed likely to stop his rise. The question is whether anything from the debate will drive some consolidation around the other candidates. Certainly, that was the goal of five of the six candidates on that stage.

With their repeated sparring, Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar hoped to force a choice between the two Midwestern moderates in the race, who share a lot of the same voters. Mr. Biden pushed back on efforts by Mr. Bloomberg and his team to sideline him in the race, challenging Mr. Bloomberg on sexual harassment and policing.

Ms. Warren, meanwhile, cast herself as a compromise between Mr. Sanders’s democratic socialism and the center-left wing of the party.

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Her attacks on Mr. Bloomberg’s use of nondisclosure agreements in cases of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at his company was one of the sharpest moments of the evening. She sliced into him, pushing him to commit from the stage to releasing women from the agreements. Mr. Bloomberg rolled his eyes and described the agreements as having been “made consensually.” (We don’t know how many such agreements there have been or how much money has been paid out.)

Maybe the women “didn’t like a joke I told,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

“We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has, who knows how many, nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against,” Ms. Warren countered.

Wikipedia vandals changed Mr. Bloomberg’s page to list his death date as Feb. 19, 2020. He wouldn’t be the first to be undone by a poor debate performance (Beto O’Rourke, R.I.P., 6/26/19). But he has already spent more than any presidential candidate in history, so it’ll be fascinating to watch whether that money can help blunt the impact from his struggles to explain his record on stop-and-frisk policing.

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How voters respond to all this drama also remains to be seen. For months, Democrats have told their candidates that they want a united front to take on President Trump. That was certainly not what they got last night. And after the caucus catastrophe in Iowa, and with fears of a rerun in Nevada on Saturday, there is plenty to fuel the “Democrats in disarray” narrative that Republicans, including Mr. Trump, are eager to push.

Perhaps the very last question of the night was the most revealing about what could lie ahead.

Increasingly, Democrats have begun worrying that in such a divided field, no candidate will accumulate a majority of pledged delegates before the party’s convention this summer. Then, the vote would go to a second ballot, which means … dum dum DUM! … the return of superdelegates, the unelected party officials and politicians who were the source of much ire from Mr. Sanders and his team in the 2016 race.

So, when the moderator Chuck Todd asked whether the candidate with the most delegates should be the nominee even if short of a majority, you can bet a whole lot of Democrats were paying attention.

All of the candidates said the convention should “work its will.” Except Mr. Sanders.

“The will of the people should prevail,” he fired back. “The person with the most votes should become the nominee.”

Over in reality TV land, we call that a cliffhanger.

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Want more debate coverage?

Here’s the recap that’s on the front page of the newspaper: The sharp attacks reflected the urgency of the moment, with Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Sanders forced onto the defensive.
For progressives like Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, Mr. Bloomberg is a gift-wrapped contrast, a flesh-and-blood billionaire elbowing in on cue, our news analysis says.
So, who won the debate? There had been little consensus on a clear winner or loser in previous debates. That changed last night.
We fact-checked the candidates on the issues, including Mr. Bloomberg’s record, Ms. Klobuchar’s votes on judges and Mr. Biden’s comments about Mitch McConnell.
How much speaking time did each candidate get — and what did they talk about? Here’s our chart.