Democrats were thinking Saturday’s debate was doomed to be another slow affair. Some expected a straight-up snoozer. But never fear, Bernie Sanders and his lawsuit are here.

By effectively declaring war on the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton on Friday, Sanders cranked up the anticipation exponentially, ensuring that the debate stage will be as tense as it’s ever been on the Democratic side of 2016 while accusations fly about stolen data and Clinton’s relationship with the Democratic National Committee.


As Sanders plans to turn the evening – and the election – into a referendum on the party establishment, here’s what POLITICO will be watching for during the forum in New Hampshire:

1. Real. Life. Excitement.

Sanders will come out swinging. Clinton will punch back, maybe harder. That much is clear.

The underdog’s aides are open about the fact that Sanders sees his brawl — and lawsuit in federal court — with the DNC as an opportunity to fire up his loyal backers and to persuade any liberals who are still uncertain about Clinton. The front-runner has the DNC’s leadership — including chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz — in her pocket, Sanders will say, and their relationship endangers the integrity of the party.

Clinton, meanwhile, won’t shy from the fight: her allies are saying that the data stolen by Sanders staffers was worth millions of dollars, and members of her political team were genuinely shaken by the revelation on Friday. Look for the former secretary of state — backed by almost the entire Democratic establishment — to lay into Sanders and what her staff sees as his dishonesty, and his campaign’s theft. His team went way too far, she will likely say, and now the senator is trying to distract from that.

In other words, expect more real anger than we’ve seen so far on the left of the 2016 contest.

2. Is Bernie Sanders’ Senate schedule going to mess with his game?

One reason Sanders might lean into his DNC attack? He hasn’t done any debate prep.

Clinton spent Friday preparing for the event — particularly expecting to fend off attacks on her ties to Wall Street, and honing her barbs on Sanders' gun record. But Sanders has been attending to Senate duty in Washington, his chief strategist Tad Devine told POLITICO.

As a result, an especially aggressive Clinton will likely try to catch Sanders stumbling in protracted policy discussions, particularly on those domestic policy issues that the New Yorker’s team sees as his weak spots based on polling. Saturday could provide her with a prime opportunity to expose his policy soft spots, figure her allies, since he has spent days with briefing books ahead of previous debates.

3. ISIS ISIS ISIS ISIS. And some other foreign policy stuff.

Clinton has turned her foreign-policy experience into an ‘adult in the room’ strategy through a series of speeches and campaign communications, including a Friday op-ed in the local Union Leader newspaper and a Minneapolis terrorism speech on Wednesday. She will argue that Sanders is both uninformed and unrealistic: his out-of-hand rejection of the Paris climate agreement, for example, will be a prime point of contrast, as the former top diplomat frequently talks about her own role in climate negotiations.

“Bernie does his best, obviously, when he can talk about economic issues and income inequality, so if the debate does center on national security, it will be an advantage for her,” said Clinton ally Ed Rendell, former Pennsylvania governor.

But, eager to prove he can talk about more than economic fairness after his press secretary scolded reporters for asking about ISIS last week, Sanders is likely to bring new talking points to the table. He’s eager to paint Clinton’s State Department as partially responsible for the rise of the terrorist group.

4. Will anyone watch?

Democrats aligned with Sanders and Martin O’Malley have long been angry at the DNC and the networks about the debate schedule, which they say is designed to protect Clinton through low viewership. And this third debate, coming the Saturday night before Christmas, is a prime example, they’ve said.

While Sanders’ attempt to ignite a fire under his base on Friday could goose the numbers, most party leaders are still skeptical that the event will move the ball demonstrably unless any one candidate makes a howling error.

“There’s only one [New Hampshire] debate and that one is happening on probably the biggest shopping weekend of the year,” complained O’Malley’s state director John Bivona. “The most common phrase we hear from our supporters when we tell them to tune in is, ‘Why is the debate on a Saturday night?’"

Plus, people around the candidates are wondering how they’re supposed to respond to the arrows slung at them by Republicans on Wednesday during their own prime-time debate that drew 18 million viewers.

“The Democrats should have been more skillful. They should have had more debates, they should have started debates earlier, and, yeah, no one’s going to watch this debate,” said former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who supports Clinton. “Republicans are garnering too much attention."

5. Clinton’s general-election pivot

While the data breach story will dominate a large chunk of the debate, Clinton’s eager to move forward. Indeed, people close to Clinton say we can expect her to make her contrasts more explicit than ever before — her contrasts with Republicans, that is.

It’s nearing the point in the campaign, they figure, where she will start making clear how important it is for a Democrat to win the White House rather than a Republican. So she’s likely to spend more of her time on stage responding to the Wednesday debate night musings of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie rather than Sanders and O’Malley.

“She’ll slam the Republicans for their militaristic policies of wanting American ground troops where there doesn’t seem to be any sentiment for it, either in the U.S. or in Europe,” said Rendell, previewing her message.

The broad strokes of that position aren’t any different from Sanders’, despite their serious disagreements on the details of international engagement. But when it comes to drawing the broadest contrasts, Clinton is spoiling for an ideological fight with the GOP.