The Democratic Party’s Las Vegas candidates debate was its liveliest and best watched yet

Last night, Las Vegas host­ed what was, with­out a doubt, the most con­tentious  debate of the 2020 cycle. It also end­ed up being the most watched.

The can­di­dates laid into each oth­er over issues large and small, per­son­al and polit­i­cal. The debate began with the oth­er can­di­dates eager­ly tak­ing on New York may­or Michael Bloomberg’s hideous record of racism, sex­ism, and elit­ist arro­gance. Lat­er, a spat broke out between Sen­a­tor Amy Klobuchar of Min­neso­ta and for­mer May­or Pete Buttigieg that made their pre­vi­ous exchanges over elec­tabil­i­ty and expe­ri­ence seem warm and friend­ly by comparison.

Unlike ear­li­er debates, the can­di­dates did not spend much time delv­ing into pol­i­cy specifics or tout­ing their com­mon ground. But the debate did offer view­ers an oppor­tu­ni­ty to see how each can­di­date reacts under fire – a vital­ly impor­tant fac­tor to take into account when choos­ing the nom­i­nee to take on Don­ald Trump.

Here’s a sum­ma­ry of how each can­di­date did.

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg prob­a­bly woke up this morn­ing hop­ing the old say­ing is true – what hap­pens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But not this time. Near­ly twen­ty mil­lion peo­ple tuned in for this debate, set­ting a new record for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate.

Bloomberg rolled into the debate with some momen­tum, large­ly thanks to the mon­ey he has plowed into his can­di­da­cy, which has helped him flood the air­waves in states like Vir­ginia. Giv­en Joe Biden’s dif­fi­cul­ties, Bloomberg was neat­ly posi­tioned to cap­i­tal­ize on his desire to buy the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic nomination.

But he squan­dered his chance to make his case on the big stage next to his rivals for the nom­i­na­tion. His hor­ren­dous per­for­mance on Wednes­day night not only ruined his chance to make a good first impres­sion with Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers intrigued by his can­di­da­cy, but may have imper­iled his odds of per­form­ing cred­i­bly in the states that will allo­cate their del­e­gates on Super Tues­day (March 3rd).

Bloomberg start­ed the debate by try­ing to make the case that Bernie Sanders is une­lec­table – but was quick­ly inter­rupt­ed by Eliz­a­beth War­ren, who want­ed to show just what une­lec­table means among Democ­rats. She ripped into Bloomberg’s long record of sex­ist remarks and non-dis­­­clo­­sure agree­ments with women who have accused him (“No, I’m not talk­ing about Don­ald Trump, I’m talk­ing about May­or Bloomberg”) and called him an “arro­gant bil­lion­aire.” Amy Klobuchar joined in, rein­forc­ing that characterization.

Bloomberg’s response was tepid and uncon­vinc­ing, say­ing that his expe­ri­ence run­ning New York – “a com­pli­cat­ed city” – qual­i­fied him. That gave Biden an open­ing. The Vice Pres­i­dent jumped in to remind Bloomberg that the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion had inter­vened in New York with fed­er­al mod­er­a­tors to mit­i­gate the dam­age that was being caused by Bloomberg’s bad crim­i­nal jus­tice policies.

Bloomberg’s excuse for mak­ing women sign non-dis­­­clo­­sure agree­ments was, quite sim­ply, one of the worst answers in mod­ern Amer­i­can politics.

Bloomberg spent most of the night tak­ing hit after hit, and was clear­ly total­ly unpre­pared for this debate. He had bought his way in, but he couldn’t talk his way out. His attempts to attack oth­er can­di­dates failed utter­ly: by com­par­ing Bernie Sanders’ Demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism to com­mu­nism (draw­ing groans from the crowd) he remind­ed peo­ple that he was a Repub­li­can who sup­port­ed George W. Bush.

Bloomberg’s per­for­mance proved that he is arro­gant, unpre­pared and total­ly unable to take on his Demo­c­ra­t­ic rivals, let alone Don­ald Trump.

Eliz­a­beth Warren

In con­trast to Michael Bloomberg, Eliz­a­beth War­ren had the best per­for­mance of the night, a marked improve­ment from her show­ing at the New Hamp­shire debate. She wast­ed no time chastist­ing Bloomberg for his sex­ist remarks right off the bat, and was relent­less for the remain­der of the debate.

While she made mince­meat out of Bloomberg (with the help of the oth­er can­di­dates on stage) where she real­ly shone was her crit­i­cal assess­ment of the neolib­er­al can­di­dates regard­ing their health­care pro­pos­als. Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg both attacked aspects of Medicare For All, but War­ren turned the tables on their own plans, say­ing that Buttigieg’s was “a Pow­er­Point” and that Klobuchar’s was bare­ly a Post-It note: “Insert plan here!”

Despite mak­ing this crit­i­cism, War­ren lat­er admirably came to Klobuchar’s res­cue. One of the mod­er­a­tors, Vanes­sa Hauc, asked Klobuchar about an inter­view in which she for­got the name of the Pres­i­dent of Mexico.

Klobuchar’s defense was derailed by Buttigieg tak­ing the moment to attack her mer­ci­less­ly for the slip-up. The spat between the two came to dom­i­nate that part of the debate, with Klobuchar becom­ing vis­i­bly angered and upset.

War­ren stepped into the mid­dle of the argu­ment to make the sim­ple point that the crit­i­cism of Klobuchar wasn’t right: “Miss­ing a name all by itself does not indi­cate that you do not under­stand what’s going on. I just think it is unfair.” Giv­en that War­ren and Klobuchar are com­pet­ing for a large­ly sim­i­lar set of vot­ers, step­ping in to help the Min­neso­ta sen­a­tor was a par­tic­u­lar­ly admirable move.

After poor per­for­mances in both Iowa and New Hamp­shire, Warren’s cam­paign need­ed a big moment to give a new lease of life to her candidacy.

In this debate, she turned in a first-rate per­for­mance, and it could very well help her going into the Neva­da Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus­es this Saturday.

Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders’ per­for­mance on the stage in Las Vegas was almost entire­ly pre­dictable, giv­en that it is large­ly the same per­for­mance he has been giv­ing in debates for almost a year now. He is a very dis­ci­plined candidate.

How­ev­er, his usu­al pros­e­ly­tiz­ing over eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty, cor­rup­tion, and the dire state of the U.S. health­care sys­tem was giv­en an extra edge by the fact that he was stand­ing a few feet away from Michael Bloomberg – a man whose hideous wealth and self-supe­ri­or­i­­ty epit­o­mizes every­thing Sanders stands against.

Sanders clear­ly enjoyed mak­ing point­ed com­ments that under­cut the plu­to­crat­ic mayor’s argu­ment that he “worked very hard” for his billions.

“You know what, Mr Bloomberg, it wasn’t you who made all that mon­ey. Maybe your work­ers played some role in that, as well!” Sanders declared at one point, echo­ing an obser­va­tion made by pro­gres­sive strate­gist George Lakoff.

(Work­ers are, indeed, the true prof­it creators.)

The only moment where Sanders seemed on the defen­sive was over his own health. The Ver­mont sen­a­tor suf­fered a heart attack in Octo­ber, and the mod­er­a­tors asked him why he has so far failed to make his full med­ical record pub­lic. Sanders gave a slight­ly con­fused answer, list­ing off some of the dif­fer­ent let­ters, reports, and records he has released. He terse­ly fin­ished by invit­ing peo­ple to fol­low him on the cam­paign trail and “see how you’re doing com­pared to me.”

How­ev­er, Sanders received some unin­ten­tion­al assis­tance on this front from for­mer May­or Buttigieg, who tried to make a link between “trans­paren­cy” over Sanders’ med­ical record and his Medicare For All pro­pos­al. Buttigieg’s effort back­fired, as Sanders was able to return to the famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry of preach­ing the ben­e­fits of his health plan, and attack­ing Buttigieg’s “sta­tus quo” policy.

Sanders is now the clear fron­trun­ner in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic field, and is strong­ly posi­tioned to do very well in the Neva­da cau­cus­es. He did not com­mit any unforced errors or mis­takes in this debate, and that was all he real­ly need­ed to do.

Joe Biden

The for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent large­ly took a back seat in the Neva­da debate, but when he did step for­ward, he gave one of his best per­for­mances to date. Hav­ing Bloomberg on stage made Biden seem bet­ter in almost every way: he was clear­ly more lik­able, more relat­able, less out-of-touch, more lib­er­al, and more coherent.

Biden man­aged to avoid get­ting mired in the more vicious fights that erupt­ed onstage – more through omis­sion than through tac­tics – and stuck to what vot­ers like about him: his role in the Oba­ma administration.

Biden’s invo­ca­tion of Oba­ma was less ham-fist­ed than in pre­vi­ous debates, most notably when he was able to skew­er May­or Bloomberg over the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tac­tics, which the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion had to step in and halt.

Biden was also, sur­pris­ing­ly, one of the can­di­dates who gave more detail-ori­en­t­ed poli­cies, espe­cial­ly on the issue of cli­mate justice.

He also took full advan­tage of his inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence, using the spat between Klobuchar and Buttigieg over Mexico’s pres­i­dent to remind every­one that he was the guy who, “met with this pres­i­dent… met with the last pres­i­dent and the one before that.” He man­aged to raise him­self above the oth­er can­di­dates dur­ing this sec­tion of the debate, with­out seem­ing mean to Klobuchar.

Biden’s fair­ly good per­for­mance will be ampli­fied enor­mous­ly by the dis­as­trous Bloomberg fias­co. Any bicon­cep­tu­al vot­er look­ing for a home in the Bloomberg camp may now be look­ing around again – and Joe Biden could benefit.

Pete Buttigieg

It was clear from the begin­ning that Buttigieg had a very sim­ple strat­e­gy for this Las Vegas debate: posi­tion him­self in the polit­i­cal cen­ter, talk about com­pro­mise, and above all else, stay calm. He stuck to the plan.

At the first oppor­tu­ni­ty, Buttigieg labelled both Sanders and Bloomberg as polar­iz­ing fig­ures: “We shouldn’t have to choose between one can­di­date who wants to burn this par­ty down and one who wants to buy this par­ty out.” He remind­ed the crowd that both Sanders and Bloomberg are rel­a­tive­ly recent mem­bers of the par­ty: “Let’s put for­ward some­body who’s actu­al­ly a Democrat!”

How­ev­er, Buttigieg spent too much time attack­ing his oppo­nents and hard­ly any time talk­ing about his own ideas, beyond bland­ly spout­ing sup­pos­ed­ly inspi­ra­tional sen­ti­ments. For every blow he land­ed on Sanders, he got one in return – his sup­port from bil­lion­aire donors, his lack of sup­port among unions, and so on. War­ren was eas­i­ly able to char­ac­ter­ize his health­care pol­i­cy as an emp­ty shell, and his response was unconvincing.

Buttigieg’s propen­si­ty to go on the attack real­ly showed through in his inter­ac­tions with Amy Klobuchar. The two can­di­dates have feud­ed on stage for a num­ber of debates, but this time, it erupt­ed into open warfare.

When Klobuchar was asked about for­get­ting the Mex­i­can president’s name, he went on the offen­sive to an absurd degree, say­ing that Klobuchar didn’t know “lit­er­al­ly the first thing about the pol­i­tics of the coun­try to our south!”

The argu­ment spi­raled out of con­trol from there. Klobuchar, out­raged, said that he was essen­tial­ly call­ing her “dumb,” and he didn’t even both­er deny­ing it.

She remind­ed Buttigieg of his humil­i­at­ing loss when he ran for state office. He in turn com­pared her to Wal­ter Mon­dale, the Min­nesota Demo­c­rat who was anni­hi­lat­ed by Ronald Rea­gan in 1984. At that point, Eliz­a­beth War­ren jumped in to res­cue Klobuchar, and stop the entire debate from going off the rails.

Buttigieg proved in this debate that he can stay calm under pres­sure and relent­less­ly apply it to his oppo­nents – vital qual­i­ties in a man seek­ing to take on the nation’s fore­most bul­ly, Don­ald Trump. How­ev­er, his cold­ness and mean-spir­it­ed­­ness will be a turn-off to many Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly for women who watched his inter­ac­tions with Klobuchar.

Amy Klobuchar

Sen­a­tor Klobuchar went into the debate hop­ing to repli­cate the Man­ches­ter per­for­mance that bol­stered her show­ing in the New Hamp­shire pri­ma­ry, but instead had her friend­ly Mid­west­ern per­sona scraped painful­ly away by Buttigieg.

At the start of the debate, she joined the big pile-on against bil­lion­aire Michael Bloomberg, remark­ing that he was “hid­ing behind his tele­vi­sion ads” and putting his plu­to­crat­ic arro­gance on display.

The ques­tion about the Mex­i­can pres­i­dent did not at first faze her. She proved that she had learned from her mis­take – “I want to say greet­ings to Pres­i­dent Lopez Obrador” – and turned the issue into a strong case for her char­ac­ter as pres­i­dent: “I made an error. I think hav­ing a pres­i­dent that maybe is hum­ble and is able to admit that here and there maybe wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”

She seemed to be unnerved by the feroc­i­ty of Buttigieg’s assault on her, becom­ing vis­i­bly rat­tled. While she gave as good as she got in the fight with the ex-South Bend May­or, the fact that Eliz­a­beth War­ren ulti­mate­ly had to step in to break up the argu­ment demon­strat­ed that Klobuchar is just as vul­ner­a­ble to get­ting locked into a pet­ty argu­ment and los­ing sight of the big pic­ture as any­one else.

They say there’s no such thing as bad pub­lic­i­ty, and Klobuchar’s spat with Buttigieg puts her at the cen­ter of the sto­ry of the debate.

How­ev­er, sym­pa­thy does not nec­es­sar­i­ly trans­late into votes – her reac­tion to Buttigieg pres­sur­ing her does not demon­strate calm under fire, an attribute that who­ev­er is the nom­i­nee will find invalu­able when going up against nar­cis­sis­tic sociopath and insult king Don­ald Trump. Need­ing anoth­er can­di­date to swoop in and res­cue you just does­n’t project con­fi­dence and electability.