Halfway through the Democratic presidential debate in Detroit on Tuesday night, there was an illuminating exchange between Senator Elizabeth Warren, who consistently polls in the double digits, and former Representative John Delaney, who does not. “I think Democrats win when we run on real solutions, not impossible promises, when we run on things that are workable, not fairy-tale economics,” he said, implicitly taking aim at Warren’s bold platform.

The Massachusetts senator often says on the campaign trail that she has “got a plan.” In Detroit, she also had a response to those, like Delaney, who knock her plans. “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” she fired back. It was the line of the night. The audience cheered; Twitter pundits declared a TKO. Delaney eked out a rebuttal about Social Security and private pensions, but was unable to get up off the mat for the rest of the night.

WARREN ethers Delaney: "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for." pic.twitter.com/ymDj6ggsve — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2019

This back-and-forth epitomized the debate as a whole, which, with a few exceptions, broke into two camps. On one side were centrists like Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Tim Ryan, and Steve Bullock, who tried to cast themselves as pragmatic progressives in a party that has shifted dramatically leftward. On the other were the two Democrats most responsible for that shift, Warren and Bernie Sanders, who spent the evening batting away moderate critiques of their wide-ranging plans.

The debate thus reflected a fundamental divide within the Democratic Party as a whole. Some describe it as a war for the soul of the party, one that began with Hillary Clinton’s defeat of Sanders in the 2016 party and only intensified with her loss to Donald Trump. If Tuesday night is any indication, it’s clear which side has the ideas, energy, and political mettle to win.

Warren set the tone for the night in stark terms. “We’re not going to solve the problems we face with small ideas and spinelessness,” she said in her opening statement. “We need to be the party of big, structural change. I understand what’s broken, I know how to fix it, and I’m willing to fight to make it happen.” Sanders, who played the bad cop to her good cop, reiterated that his goal was to “not only defeat Trump but to transform our economy and our government.”

