On December 19, the sixth and last debate for this year took place among Democrat Presidential Candidates. This time seven candidates took part in the debate: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Young and Tom Steyer. Unlike the previous debate, Kamala Harris, who has withdrawn from the presidential race, Cory Booker and Tulsi Gabbard, did not participate in the debate. The last two candidates did not meet the requirements for the debate.
This debate was also singled out by the fact that it was watched by a record low number of viewers. It was predicted that President Trump’s impeachment would overshadow the Democratic debate, which actually happened. The debate had just over 6 million views. The most watched debate from this cycle till now has been the first debate of June, with around 15.3–18.1 million views, according to different sources. However, even this viewership figure does not come near to the one posted by Donald Trump’s first debate on Fox News in August, 2015 with 24 million views.
During the 6th Democratic Debate Bernie Sanders got the most speaking time– 20:30 minutes, with Amy Klobuchar following him. The difference between the speaking times of the candidates, who come 3rd and 4th -Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, is just a few seconds. Usually, the leading candidates in the polls record the most speaking time, but in this case this pattern was not maintained. In particular, leading candidate Joe Biden came fifth in this list among 7 candidates.
The debate started with the discussion of impeachment and the traditional topics of economics, healthcare, climate change, racism, Afghanistan, Israel etc. were also touched upon throughout the debate.
If the first part of the debate was more calm and monotonous, the second part was full of clashes and heated discussions. This time it was not the leading candidate Joe Biden who was targeted but a recent highly rated candidate- Pete Buttigieg. The first candidate who had a clash with him was Elizabeth Warren, who accused Buttigieg of being funded by billionaires. Buttigieg defended himself, noting that he was the only candidate on the stage who is not a millionaire, unlike Warren, who is able to self-fund her campaign. Bernie Sanders also joined the discussion, noting that Joe Biden is funded by 44 billionaires, while Pete Buttidge – 39. Senator Klobuchar also had a clash with Mayor Buttigieg referring to what Buttigieg said during the previous debate. In particular, the Mayor had said, “There’s more than 100 years of Washington experience on this stage, and where are we right now as a country?” Senator Klobuchar opposed, pointing out some of the candidates’ (Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Amy Klobuchar herself) contributions for the country.
Another clash took place between Vice President Biden and Senator Sanders, when foreign policy was being discussed. Sanders mentioned that the biggest difference between him and the Vice President was that Biden supported the terrible war in Iraq, while he led the opposition against the Iraq war.
Interestingly, the approaches of the leading democratic candidates concerning Israel seriously differ from Donald Trump’s approach. Particularly, Senator Sanders, being Jewish, mentioned that the USA should not only be pro-Israel, but be pro-Palestinian as well. Meanwhile, Vice President Biden claimed that ‘’It’s not possible to have a Jewish state in the Middle East without there being a two-state solution’’.
This time the last part of the debate turned out to be quite interesting, particularly the candidates were given a choice- either to give a gift or ask for forgiveness. Only women candidates asked for forgiveness, and Andrew Yang offered a book written by him to other candidates as a gift.
Vice President Joe Biden is still the leading candidate in the sixth debate. The next debate will take place on January 14, 2020. It should also be noted that the seven candidates participating in the debate had signed a letter to the Democratic National Committee to lower the threshold for debate requirements, as 6 out of the 7 candidates participating in the last debate were white (only one candidate- Andrew Young was Asian)․ However, Democratic National Committee has not yet indicated how the candidates for the January debate will be chosen.
