This year’s inaugural Democratic presidential debate, on Wednesday night, featured Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren along with nine underdogs. It was likened to the kids table at Thanksgiving dinner.

Thursday’s event, on the other hand, was a smorgasbord at an upscale restaurant. It had four of the five candidates who have consistently placed in the top tier of voter opinion surveys: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg. The presence of the other six candidates on the stage, from tech executive Andrew Yang to spirituality guru Marianne Williamson, meant the night offered something for everyone.

So what happened? In short, the high-profile candidates proved why they have high profiles. Buttigieg and Harris dominated a night filled with serious discussions of policy, and Biden mostly held his own. Lesser-known candidates, meanwhile, struggled to gain any traction.

Below is a quick-reaction breakdown of the candidates’ performances Thursday, with our letter grades for each:

KAMALA HARRIS

The junior senator from California rose up the Democratic Party ranks by heralding her record as a prosecutor. But in the wake of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, she’s seen that record come under attack from progressive activists. Her mission at the debate was to show she’s prosecutor-tough but not prosecutorial -- unless, that is, she’s prosecuting President Donald Trump. And she pulled it off. When multiple candidates started yelling over each other, she stepped in and said that voters didn’t want a “food fight,” they want food on their tables. She seamlessly worked in some of her biography and C.V. She passionately argued that “working families need support and to be lifted up, and that this economy is not working for them.” She said she favors a $500-per-month tax credit for families making less than $100,000. “In America,” she said, “no one should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table.”

How much she needed a good debate performance: Her debate showing might push her poll numbers up, but it probably won’t raise her profile much -- because she’s already reasonably well known. A Morning Consult poll that was released Monday found that 81 percent of respondents knew who she was.

Debate grade: A

PETE BUTTIGIEG

The South Bend (Ind.) mayor, cerebral and yet relatable, has been the surprise of this early phase of the primary campaign. Some Democratic insiders wonder if he has staying power. They worry he’s too young (he’s 37), and they note he’s struggling to deal with the anger of his city’s residents after a white police officer shot an African-American man in South Bend. But he handled himself with aplomb during Thursday’s debate, and he probably ended up with the most screen time. He was calm and prepared and straightforward. He wants college to be much less expensive, but he does not favor canceling student debt like Bernie Sanders does. He said every candidate who talks up Medicare-for-all has a “responsibility” to lay out exactly how they’re going to pay for it. He condemned the Republican Party for using religious language as the bedrock of its rhetoric while pursuing immoral policies such as separating children from their migrant parents. “We should call out hypocrisy when we see it,” he said.

How much he needed a good debate performance: Buttigieg has become a national-media favorite, but he still needs to raise his profile. The Morning Consult poll found that 29 percent of respondents had never heard of him.

Debate grade: A-

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) APAP

BERNIE SANDERS

The 77-year-old independent Vermont senator has seen his standing in the polls slide over the last couple of months as Sen. Warren has wowed audiences with her detailed progressive policy plans and buoyant personality. His goal for Thursday night: prove he’s not too far left (he’s an avowed democratic socialist) to be elected president and solve America’s problems. “Health care, in my view, is a human right, and we have to pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system,” he said. He admitted Americans will pay more in taxes, “but less for health care.” He said he would pay for his proposal to eliminate student debt with a tax on Wall Street. He offered up an unusual idea to “rotate judges” in and out of the Supreme Court, saying he would do this to save Roe v. Wade. And he hit President Trump harder than anyone else. “Donald Trump is a phony... he’s a pathological liar.” The way to beat Trump is obvious, he said. “We expose him as the fraud that he is.” In short, Bernie was Bernie. Passionate. Loud. Hectoring. Repetitive. Those who love him will still love him.

How much he needed a good debate performance: He has near-universal name recognition, but he needed to prove he was still the race’s progressive standard-bearer.

Debate grade: B+

ANDREW YANG

The little-known entrepreneur has shown on Twitter that he has a good sense of humor. (“My Spanish is terrible,” he tweeted Wednesday night after several candidates in the first debate spoke Spanish. “Sorry, Ms. Trovato, my 9th-grade Spanish teacher,” he added. “Not your fault.”) He wasn’t able to garner any laughs, or get much attention from the moderators, at Thursday’s debate. But when he did speak, he was compelling. Yang appealed for the slacker vote by proposing a $1,000-per-month universal basic income, and he argued that it would help the U.S. address climate change. He said universal basic income is doable if big corporations like Amazon start paying taxes and the U.S. put a value-added tax on products. He incisively described how China has unfairly undercut the U.S. economy. China has been “laughing at us” and we must “crack down on Chinese malfeasance,” he said. In his closing statement, he said he’d create a thriving “trickle-up economy [that’s] not left, it’s not right, it’s forward.”

How much he needed a good debate performance: The Morning Consult poll found that 45 percent of respondents had never heard of Yang.

Debate grade: B+

MICHAEL BENNET

The senator from Colorado is smart and thoughtful. He knows that the extreme partisanship of the past two decades has made Washington, D.C., a toxic place, paralyzing true reform on any front. “As I look back on a decade in the Senate, I can’t help being haunted by a profound sense of lost opportunity,” he writes in his new book, “The Land of Flickering Lights.” On the debate stage Thursday, Bennet didn’t have an answer for ending this political gridlock beyond the Democrats winning back the Senate and “root[ing] out corruption in Washington.” But he was by turns wonkish and passionate, even getting briefly emotional when talking about his mother. On health care, he said it’s a right, but that Medicare-for-all isn’t the answer. He favors creating a public option: “I think we will get there much more quickly if we do that.”

How much he needed a good debate performance: The Morning Consult poll found that 46 percent of respondents had never heard of Bennet.

Debate grade: B

JOE BIDEN

Over his nearly 50-year career in national politics, the former vice president earned a reputation as a “gaffe machine.” That propensity to say weird, easy-to-misinterpret things has continued during the 76-year-old’s few short weeks in this race, most notably his nostalgic-seeming recollection of working with segregationist politicians early in his Senate tenure. His universal name recognition and hail-fellow-well-met personality have put him at the top of the polls, but he has to prove he’s not too old, too out-of-date and too centrist to win over today’s young, leftist, activism-driven Democratic voters. He had a spring in his step, and he looked pretty stylish, but he made no apologies for his middle-of-the-road views. Rather than single-payer health insurance now, he said we must “build on Obamacare.” And, as expected, he went after the president. “Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America,” he said. “Ordinary middle-class Americans built America.” He was doing fine until Harris challenged him -- citing her own personal experience -- on his 1970s views on busing. He struggled to explain that he did not oppose school integration then but he did oppose how the federal government went about it. After that tête-à-tête he seemed a bit out of sorts.

How much he needed a good debate performance: He didn’t need to win; he just needed to not lose. A Morning Consult poll released Monday found that pretty much every Democrat in the country knows who he is.

Debate grade: B

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND

The senator from New York earned the anger of progressives when she helped drive Democratic Senate colleague Al Franken from office after several women accused him of inappropriate touching. And some Democratic voters are skeptical of her move from centrist positions to progressive firebrand in recent years. She talked Thursday night about creating a “transition period” that would lead to single-payer universal health care. She insisted, in her strangely mesmerizing nasally voice, that she was the “fiercest advocate for women’s reproductive rights” in American politics. We’re not sure what else she said. She kept trying to jump in -- and she was usually drowned out by Sanders.

How much she needed a good debate performance: The Morning Consult poll found that 27 percent of respondents had never heard of Gillibrand.

Debate grade: C

Democratic presidential candidates (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) APAP

JOHN HICKENLOOPER

The former Colorado governor scored cheers from the in-house audience when he called the Trump Administration’s policy of separating children from their migrant parents “kidnapping.” Otherwise, he mostly faded into the wallpaper. (“Socialism is not the solution” to climate change, he said, which seemed to leave the crowd cold -- and a little confused.) Many Democratic insiders last year were hoping he would run for the U.S. Senate rather than president. Hickenlooper’s debate performance Thursday suggests there will be time for him to reconsider his decision to forgo a Senate race.

How much he needed a good debate performance: The Morning Consult poll found that 45 percent of respondents had never heard of Hickenlooper.

Debate grade: C

ERIC SWALWELL

The 38-year-old California congressman raised his profile over the past year with regular President Trump-bashing appearances on cable-TV news shows. But he’s light on experience and legislative achievement. So far, his decision to make gun control his signature issue hasn’t paid any dividends. Thursday night, he insisted it was time for the older generation to “pass the torch” to the next generation of leaders. He caused the most awkward moment of the night when he cut off Buttigieg and called for him to fire the chief of the South Bend police force. He gave the impression that he was angling for the vice-presidential slot -- unless Buttigieg is the nominee.

How much he needed a good debate performance: The Morning Consult poll found that 53 percent of respondents had never heard of Swalwell.

Debate grade: C-

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON

Admiral James Stockdale, independent candidate Ross Perot’s running mate, introduced himself at the 1992 vice-presidential debate by saying, “Who am I? Why am I here?” Williamson, a New Age author with no experience as an elected official, could have said the same thing Thursday night. She said she agreed with most of the other candidates’ policy proposals but that “we’ve got to get deeper than these superficial fixes.” Medicare-for-all wouldn’t be a cure-all, she said: “We need to talk about why so many people have chronic illnesses.” She did earn cheers from the audience when she argued that Trump’s immigration policies, specifically separating children from their migrant parents, are “state-supported crimes.” But she needed to hit a home run for the night to be a success for her, and she didn’t.

How much she needed a good debate performance: Despite several spirituality how-to bestsellers to Williamson’s name, the Morning Consult poll found that 57 percent of respondents had never heard of her.

Debate grade: C-

WHAT’S NEXT

CNN will host televised debates on July 30-31 in Detroit.

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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