She was sharp; she was focused; she was hard-hitting; she was passionate; and she took on Donald Trump. Her best line of the night: “Donald Trump got punked.” And she brought up the way in which black women voters are treated by the mainstream media and the Democratic Party, which needs them to win!

Mayor Pete was there, but he did not have any great breakout moments. And the rest of the field was also there but not in any kind of meaningful ways. I am going to stick with what I have said all along: Steyer, Yang and Gabbard need to go. They are not going to get the nomination or be the VP choice. They should get out. This field really needs to get down to the top five or six candidates so that we, the people, can really hear a substantive debate on the issues we all care about.

‘It’s easy to see why Klobuchar is rising in Iowa’

Liz Mair is a Republican campaign communications consultant.

The winners Wednesday night were, in order, Klobuchar, Biden, Booker and Yang. It’s easy to see why Klobuchar is rising in Iowa: She comes across as competent, funny, smart, likable—someone you wouldn’t worry about being sworn in, in 2021. She should be in the top five, maybe even top three or four. This debate might result in Klobuchar getting to 10 percent in Iowa, which would significantly shift the way this race unfolds.

The debate moderators seemed less focused on Buttigieg than I would have expected given his Iowa polling. I suspect that is a manifestation of the beginning of a bit of a slide for him.

The Elizabeth Warren we saw Wednesday night doesn’t look like a lady who really has plans—or if she does, they might suck, and whether or not they do, she might alter them 25 times between now and the Iowa caucuses. That’s a bad look for her. It felt to me as though she’s lost some steam and will continue to lose steam.

‘The Little Debate That Could’

Charles Ellison is a political strategist and talk-radio host.

Does K-12 education exist in America? Because, judging from Wednesday night’s debate and others, it clearly doesn’t.

The optics didn’t much change. The stage was less crowded but the discussions were still very much tailored for audiences over 45. It was quite hard for The Little Debate That Could to stand out after two consecutive days of dramatic, damning impeachment hearing testimony. The collective yawns and eye rubs from post-hearing exhaustion were practically audible in the first hour of this debate, with some snark-filled adrenaline in the second hour.

There was a battle between the candidates who are desperate to show they believe they can be president and the candidates who—real talk—you can tell aren’t so sure. There will be much said about how much Biden gaffed and fended off frontal assaults from Booker and Harris, but we’ve been there before while he remains steady and sure. Twitter doesn’t pick nominees, primaries do. Buttigieg’s Maynard Jackson reference was rich considering he awarded only 3 percent of South Bend city contracts to minority firms. Gabbard seemed out of her depth and off balance. Biden jammed up Steyer on climate. Yang played it cool. Harris had stronger moments on black women and North Korea, for sure. Sanders is still more interested in revolution than winning elections, and Warren’s ‘I have a plan’ punchline is getting more worn with each passing selfie.

Klobuchar and Booker stood out, and so did the centrality of race.

Seth Masket is a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, specializing in political parties, state legislatures, and campaigns and elections.

This was a relatively positive debate. Most of the questions were directed at the polling leaders, but not that many direct attacks were, unlike in the last debate when many candidates attacked Warren for not having a plan to pay for her proposed health care reform. Somewhat surprisingly, not very many attacks were directed at Buttigieg, despite his recent polling surge, and some candidates notably avoided direct attacks on him.

There wasn’t an obvious winner, but the candidates who have been getting more debate time as the field narrows, like Klobuchar and Booker, had particularly strong appearances. Harris has been waning somewhat in recent polls but also had a number of particularly good moments.

There weren’t too many glaring gaffes, with the notable exception of when Biden tried to brag about his support among African Americans and seemed to forget that Harris was in the Senate, and then denied he’d said that. It was no worse than other gaffes he’s made this year, and his polling has been pretty robust despite these, but it was a memorable moment and stood apart from an otherwise pretty solid performance.

A lot of what we saw Wednesday night were reminders that race is at the heart of debates within the Democratic Party, whether the main discussion is about health access or abortion or marijuana or anything else.

Kamala Harris showed up for black women.

Michelle Bernard is a political analyst, lawyer, author and president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy.

Harris won the debate when she fired off these seventeen words:

“A criminal is living in the White House,”

“Justice is on the ballot,” and

“Show up for me.”

I make this bold statement despite whatever conventional wisdom may say tomorrow. I make this statement not as a fellow graduate of Howard University, as a fellow lawyer, a friend of Harris, or even as the daughter of immigrants to the United States (both of my parents were born and raised in Jamaica).

I watched the fifth Democratic presidential debate through the lens of a black woman, a feminist, an independent voter and as an individual who believes deeply in social, racial and gender justice, religious freedom, and the free market.

Like women across the country, I watched as someone who believes firmly that all issues are women’s issues and was thrilled to watch a debate hosted solely by an all-female panel of moderators addressing issues that ran the gamut from national security to the environment to health care reform. But I also watched as a mother who has watched every hour of the impeachment hearings with thoughts about what our great nation has become since the 2016 presidential election.

So, I watched with no passion about most of what was said by most of the candidates for the first 90 minutes of the debate. I watched the 2020 Democratic contenders who made it to the debate stage located in a movie studio built by Tyler Perry, a black man, on land in the heart of Dixie, wondering who was going to show up for the black women who will vote to elect the next president of the United States—to keep our children alive; keep us safe from death at the hands of police; appropriately punish the likes of women (and men) who have come to be known in our community as “Barbeque Becky,” “Permit Patty,” and “Cornerstore Caroline”; protect the rights of black and brown people to vote; push for criminal justice reform, judges and a justice system dedicated to the rule of law and justice for all; advocate for reproductive rights, protection from sexual violence, the rights of the LGBTQ community and freedom from religious bigotry; and protect the United States Constitution and our democracy from the White House’s current inhabitant. After all, our democracy was built with the blood, sweat and tears of black men and black women.

Iowa and New Hampshire polls aside, middle America aside, and Trump supporters aside, the next president of the United States could be elected largely by black women and Wednesday night, Senator Harris was the only candidate who showed up for us.

‘The stakes get higher and yet the interesting moments get lower’

Sean McElwee is a writer, data analyst and co-founder of the progressive think tank Data for Progress.

The stakes get higher and yet the interesting moments get lower. Across the board we are seeing a field of candidates in stasis and a debate format incapable of creating real decision points for voters.

Not a lot of pizzazz, and that’s a good thing.

Jesse Ferguson is a Democratic strategist, former official in Hillary Clinton’s campaign and former IE executive director of the DCCC.

Wednesday was a day of sunlight, revealing the truth about the current occupant of the White House. People learned more bombshell revelations about the corruption and criminality of the president, witnessed a hearing that revealed things which feel like a cross between The Godfather and the Sopranos, and saw a Republican Party that’s become obsessed with 4chan conspiracies and alternative facts so they can please a constituency of one.

Wednesday night, voters saw steady articulation of the alternative to Trump with Democrats addressing real policy solutions to many of the issues that people worry about around the kitchen table. They saw a Democratic Party united in defense of democracy, with a substantive agenda to improve people’s lives.

These debates might not always have the most pizzazz, but our candidates have shown people that Democrats care about the size of the middle class, not the size of their hands. For the 350 days between now and the general election, that’s not a bad contrast for people to see.

‘Buttigieg walked away unscathed’

Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator, resident fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy Institute of Politics and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President.

It’s conventional wisdom in presidential politics for the surging candidate to receive incoming fire on the debate stage, yet Buttigieg walked away unscathed. For that reason, I view him as the winner of the Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta. Buttigieg also attempted to address a campaign challenge of connecting with black voters by saying, “Faith teaches me to reach out to those who are marginalized in our society.”

Aside from a winnowing field, the Democratic debates have been relatively similar with a stark contrast between the far left wing of the party and the moderates.

Biden received the most incoming fire on stage, yet he held his own and closed with a fiery plea for voters to “get up and take it back” so that America can lead the world again.

Warren and Sanders continued to hold the left flank of the ticket, touting Medicare for All and the urgent need to address climate change. Klobuchar stood in strong contrast as a moderate voice, telling viewers, “We need to be honest about what we can pay for.”

Things could change as potential candidates eye jumping in the race, promising to be the moderate voice that can unite the party and ultimately defeat President Trump, but for now, nothing’s new.

Is Biden’s brain working?

Matt Bruenig is the founder and president of the People’s Policy Project, a progressive think tank.

In last night’s debate, Biden showed the country once again that his brain is not fully functioning. He could barely get through a sentence without losing his train of thought or starting over. I kept expecting him to wander off the stage with a thousand-yard stare. I can’t be the only one who sees this. At some point, you have to think that Biden’s Bad Brain will have some kind of effect on his level of voter support.

Don’t sleep on Sleepy Joe.

Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of the National Interest.

The candidates that flourished, to borrow Gordon M. Sondland’s phrase, were the ones that went big or went home. Harris showed she had game with her emphatic declarations, “We have a criminal in the White House” and “Donald Trump got punked by North Korea.” What’s more, her incineration of Gabbard for dunking on Barack Obama for years on Fox News offered further evidence that she would be a human blowtorch either as a presidential or vice presidential candidate. Warren and Sanders, true to form, came out swinging on the need for radical reform. Buttigieg was remarkably fluent and poised about the need for moderation, though a certain arrogant complacency crept into some of his statements. But the most erratic candidate was, of course, Biden, who rescued his performance in his closing statement with a Reaganesque exhortation that America’s best days are ahead of it. His vigorous close showed that anyone who dismisses his candidacy as sleepy and somnolent should think twice.