The third democratic debate took place on September 12. Only 10 candidates were qualified to continue the race. Those are Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar and Andrew Yang. They were eligible to take part in the third democratic debate as they were able to receive at least 2% in four out of 21 qualifying polls and earn donations from at least 130,000 individual donors. Among those who stayed out of the race was Tulsi Gabbard- the most pro-Armenian presidential candidate among others. She could receive donations from more than 150,000 individual donors, but could not pass the threshold of 2% in four polls.
The debate was again predominantly concentrated on domestic issues, more specifically on medicare and gun control. While Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to replace “Obamacare” with “Medicare for all”, Joe Biden wants to build on “Obamacare”. The main argument of the leading candidate Joe Biden is that his proposal costs much less ($740 billion) than the ones offered by Warren and Sanders ($30 trillion). Elizabeth Warren by all means avoided to give a direct answer whether her proposed plan for “Medicare” is going to be implemented by raising taxes for middle class families or not.
As for the gun control issue, Beto O’Rourke was the most active, which can be explained by the fact that he is from El Paso, where mass shooting happened on August 3, 2019. He argued that there is a necessity for the State Government to buy back such kind of weapons as AR-15 and AK-47.
Through the whole course of debate almost all the candidates were much more active than before. Juliani Castro is worth mentioning here, as he didn’t miss a single chance to criticize Joe Biden. Firstly, he put into doubt Biden’s ability to remember what he said 2 minutes ago, then blamed Biden for taking credit for all the achievements of Obama’s administration and avoiding to take responsibility for unsuccessful ones.
The other important issue discussed was the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The most remarkable answer to this question was given by Senator Elizabeth Warren who declared her willingness to bring troops back home even without a deal, stating that ‘’ We can’t ask our military to keep solving problems that cannot be solved militarily’’. Bernie Sanders opposed himself to Joe Biden when discussing the possible similarity of the troop withdrawal consequences in Afghanistan with Iraq (referring to 9/11). Sanders claimed to be the only one who never believed Bush and Cheney and was against the war in Iraq.
The one who stands out among other candidates is an entrepreneur Andrew Yang. From the very beginning of the debate he promised to give from his campaign $1000 for a year to 10 American families on condition they go to Yang2020.com and mention how that money will help them solve their own problems. He didn’t stop at this. The next promise was to give every American 100 ‘’Democracy dollars’’, that people ‘’ can give to candidates and causes’’ that they like. According to Young, this will help them get rid of lobbyists influence.
After this third democratic debate Joe Biden is still the leading candidate followed by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.