IT WAS the fifth face-off between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a series of Democratic primary debates, but their first one-to-one after their last remaining rival, Maryland’s former governor Martin O’Malley, dropped out on February 1st. And it was a last-minute decision, taken this week, to hold a debate on February 4th, just five days before voters cast their ballots in first New Hampshire’s primary. Having come under fire for not organising enough debates, the Democratic National Committee hastily scheduled four additional encounters between the two candidates for the nomination. Mrs Clinton was in a more vulnerable position than usual. Still the front-runner, until not long ago she seemed a shoo-in to be the Democratic candidate for the presidency. She only just avoided humiliation at the caucuses in Iowa, eking out the narrowest of victories: 49.9% of the votes, compared with 49.6% for Mr Sanders. She now faces a tough contest in New Hampshire where Mr Sanders, a senator from neighbouring Vermont, is extremely popular. A Wall Street Journal poll, taken after the Iowa caucuses, found that Mr Sanders leads Mrs Clinton there by 58% to 38%. A CNN/WMUR poll, also taken after Iowa, found that Mr Sanders’ support stands at a whopping 61% of the votes compared with 30% for Mrs Clinton.

Chuck Todd of NBC News and the indefatigable Rachel Maddow of MSNBC moderated the two-hour debate professionally, giving the candidates plenty of room and then asking questions that were both factual and pointed. The discussion was a much punchier affair than the Democrats’ previous debates. Mr Sanders and Mrs Clinton at times stared at each other angrily, maintaining stern and even dismissive expressions when the other spoke. Over the past couple of months Mr Sanders has become a serious rival to Mrs Clinton, who had hoped to be able to ignore him. The sense was that for these two very different Democrats—the quintessential pragmatist versus the sometimes utopian idealist—the gloves had come off.

The candidates spent much of their time arguing about what it means to be a progressive, a title to which both aspire. Mrs Clinton took a very literal approach: she portrays herself as someone who gets things done, and thus qualifies as someone who achieves “progress”. She said in a slightly patronisingly way that she understood Mr Sanders wants to distinguish himself as the “self-declared gatekeeper of progressivism”. Mr Sanders, who has repeatedly questioned his rival’s commitment to progressive causes, pointed out that Mrs Clinton has almost the entire establishment behind her—implying that the establishment and progressivism were mutually exclusive. His campaign, he said, is “of the people, by the people and for the people”. “I don’t think it was particularly progressive to vote against the Brady bill five times,” shot back Mrs Clinton, referring to a legislative bill to tighten gun control. “I don’t think it was progressive to vote to protect gunmakers; I don’t think it was progressive to vote against Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform bill”.

The two candidates had another spirited exchange on health care. Mrs Clinton presented herself as bearer of the flame of Obamacare and accused Mr Sanders of wanting to dismantle the system that has given health care to millions of previously uninsured people. Mr Sanders, who favours a single-payer system of health care, as well as free tuition at public universities (paid for with higher taxes on the rich), denied that he intends to abolish the Affordable Care Act. He claimed he simply wants to take it further, by providing insurance for everyone, including the 29m people who are still uninsured.

Mr Sanders sounded a bit like a broken record with some of his attacks on Wall Street, usually singling out Goldman Sachs, the investment bank which, in his view, brought down the American economy and destroyed the lives of millions of Americans. Unfairness is a part of the problem; on Mr Sanders’s example, if a kid gets caught with marijuana, he gets a police record. But when a Wall Street executive destroys the economy—he has no criminal record. Mr Sanders went on about Wall Street and the financial firepower of its “super-PACs”, organisations that pool campaign funds, which Mrs Clinton has but he doesn’t.

Eventually Mrs Clinton lost her cool and accused him of attacking her with insinuations about donations and speaking fees (from Goldman Sachs and others), which she called “artful smear”—to boos from the audience. This incited Mr Sanders to launch into yet another diatribe on why Wall Street was deregulated in the 1990s (when Bill Clinton was president) and why America has the highest prescription drug prices in the world (the power of rich lobbies). Asked by Mr Todd whether she would release transcripts of her paid speeches, including those for Goldman Sachs, Mrs Clinton said she would look into it.

When it came to foreign policy Mrs Clinton was on safer ground. As a former secretary of state she is far more experienced on all matters concerning America’s international relations than her rival. When asked whether Barack Obama was right to increase the number of American troops fighting Islamic State (IS), she gave a very polished answer, backing the president’s policy but insisting firmly that she did not want any American troops on the ground in Syria or Iraq. She came across as hawkish on Iran and cautious to avoid specifics about when she would withdraw American troops from Afghanistan.

Mr Sanders, who has not said much about his foreign-policy plans except for one recent speech, was at pains to avoid looking like an apprentice next to Mrs Clinton. He called North Korea a very strange situation, run by a paranoid individual with nuclear ambitions. His solution would be to let China deal with it. On dealing with IS, he agreed with Mrs Clinton, adding that it must be a Muslim coalition that defeats IS.

At the end of the debate Mrs Clinton was asked whether she would choose Mr Sanders as vice president. She laughed briefly, then gave a gracious answer, saying that she must not get ahead of herself and that, if she were elected, Mr Sanders would be the first person she would call for advice. Mr Sanders paid Mrs Clinton a compliment saying how much he respected her and that even on their worst days they were both 100 times better than the Republicans. Yet in spite of these friendly words, there is little doubt that unless the latest polls are very wrong, Mr Sanders will win New Hampshire by a comfortable margin. But Mrs Clinton will be fighting hard through the next primary, in Nevada, and she is backed by a formidable campaign organisation. She may be unlikely to win Democratic voters’ hearts, but with her undeniable competence she will probably manage to persuade quite a few minds that she is the more electable candidate.