Bernie Sanders is swaggering into the sixth Democratic debate. After a humbling, 22-point defeat in New Hampshire Tuesday, Hillary Clinton is staggering in.

Sanders spent Wednesday on something of a victory tour in New York, filming television shows and meeting with the Rev. Al Sharpton as part of an outreach effort aimed at minority voters. On Thursday, he’ll be looking to prove at the PBS Newshour debate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that he’s no fluke, that Team Clinton’s contention that he ran well in Iowa and New Hampshire because Democratic voters in those states are heavily white and heavily liberal (like Wisconsin) is nothing but an excuse.


The Vermont senator has a simple message, but a complicated case to make for why he’d be a stronger nominee than Clinton. Now, armed with an early-state victory and $7 million in new cash raised from supporters in the euphoria after the New Hampshire polls closed, he’s poised to argue he’s in this race for the long haul.

Clinton isn’t just looking to stop the bleeding following two weaker-than-expected early-state performances. She’ll be eager to prove that her campaign has heard what voters are saying, and that she’s just as strong today as she was when she was viewed as the inevitable front-runner.

Here are POLITICO’s five things to watch for tonight:

1) The race to be the next black president

As soon as the results were counted Tuesday, the competition between Sanders and Clinton turned into a fight over race — as in, which candidate is the best advocate for the issues of concern to African-American voters and who has the deeper ties.

Clinton was the first to make the appeal on Tuesday night, invoking the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, near the top of her New Hampshire concession speech. Sanders countered with a breakfast with Sharpton at Sylvia’s in Harlem the next morning. Then the Clinton campaign went into overdrive, holding a conference call with prominent black surrogates shortly after her campaign said the mothers of a series of black men killed by police violence would be campaigning for the former secretary of state. The biggest development came last: news that the Congressional Black Caucus PAC would endorse Clinton on Thursday.

Since Clinton’s theory of the case leans heavily on the idea that she is safely on her way to the nomination because of her support among minorities — and the knock on Sanders is that his inability to win minority votes will make it impossible for him to compete with Clinton over the long haul — the debate stage will provide a prime opportunity for both to assert their bona fides.

That means the crisis in Flint is bound to get an airing; the only question is whether Sanders beats Clinton to it. Sanders is also likely to remind voters of his personal connections to the civil rights struggle by mentioning the fact that he was at the March on Washington in 1963.

While the next Democratic contest is in Nevada on Feb. 20, the target audience will be South Carolina, where a heavily black Democratic primary electorate will vote on Feb. 27.

“She’s going to be more aggressive, more focused on issues that our Democratic base in South Carolina cares a lot about,” said former South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, a Clinton backer, referring to issues that are important to the African-American community. “And those are not issues that are at the center for a guy from Vermont.”

2) The art of front-running

Clinton has to remind the Democratic Party rank and file why she was the dominating front-runner for well over a year. Sanders — now that he has drawn even with Clinton in early-state wins — has to show that he is ready to be president, rather than the leader of a movement.

In the wake of her blowout loss in New Hampshire, Clinton’s supporters, Democratic superdelegates and party solons need her to project the air of an unshaken party leader, and to remind them of why she seemed so inevitable in the first place.

For Sanders, the mission is different. This is his first time on the national stage as something of an equal with Clinton, rather than as an insurgent nipping at her heels. Voters will be watching closely to see if he can handle the post-New Hampshire spotlight without stumbling — and that his message is broad enough for him to serve as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer and perhaps even as commander in chief.

3) Bernie’s bio

Yes, we know that Sanders grew up in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn.

Yes, we know that he’s the son of a Polish immigrant.

But now Sanders has to step beyond these stump speech staples to tell a fuller version of his life story, if his move to broaden his appeal is going to take hold — especially with minority voters. The famously gruff senator started on Wednesday, showing a little more of his personal side on “The View” and on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” He also made a visit to the Brooklyn apartment where he grew up.

His chief strategist, Tad Devine, telegraphed the upcoming emphasis on the candidate’s biography after Sanders was declared the winner in New Hampshire.

“This is a guy who, as a student at the University of Chicago, set the direction of his entire life to the civil rights struggle, and we think telling his story and what became of it — his fight for equality, civil rights, his fight against inequality and economic injustice — is very, very powerful, is going to resonate with the African American community," said Devine.

The campaign’s first ads in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oklahoma — key states for Sanders in his Super Tuesday strategy— will be bio spots. The Milwaukee debate is a good place to offer a preview.

4) How hard will Clinton attack?

Clinton faces a conundrum as she considers how to attack Sanders: Should she once again look to level him with a few roundhouse punches designed to make him look like a calculating, hypocritical politician? Or should she avoid alienating his supporters and chip away at Sanders with a series of policy-based critiques to knock him off-balance?

People close to the Clintons felt her projection of anger in the last debate was over the top, and now some close Clinton allies are hoping to see her focus on strength — not frustration — when she takes on the senator she has accused of impugning her integrity.

In other words, she needs to calibrate her attacks on Sanders, striking a tone that more closely approximates the one she used in her well-received New Hampshire concession speech — which even critics say was the most powerful, and most strength-projecting, speech of her campaign.

5) Can Sanders take a punch?

Sanders has made clear that he expects the Clinton camp to unleash all its oppo research, advertising money and surrogate “attack dogs” on him. In the past 48 hours, the senator, his aides and his fundraising emails have all used the term “kitchen sink”— as in, everything but the kitchen sink is going to be thrown at him.

But the question on the Milwaukee stage isn’t how Sanders will respond to an onslaught. It’s whether he can take a punch in the first place. He appeared rattled at the last debate in New Hampshire, unable to muster much more than “ooooh, whoooa” when Clinton accused him of an “artful smear” over her fundraising practices. He’ll need a more nimble response in the future if he doesn’t want the attacks to stick, or to appear flustered.

That won’t be easy against Clinton, an opponent who’s had far more experience in smashmouth campaigns and bruising debates. She’s already shown glimpses of her sink-throwing skill in a debate-setting: think back to Clinton’s sly backhanding of Martin O’Malley, who had taken a shot at her Wall Street connections. Despite his low standing in the polls, Clinton had ordnance ready for him, quickly reminding viewers that the former Maryland governor himself had appointed an investment banker to an obscure regulatory position in state government. That move should have served notice to her opponents: This candidate does her research, and she knows how to use it.

