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I thought Cory Booker won last night’s debate. He was engaging and succinct and avoided the needless detail that many candidates went into. He won the face-off with Biden, including a funny line about Kool-Aid, and he also tried to stay focused on the real opponent: President Trump.

As I’ve said before, Booker deserves a hearing as a top-tier candidate. You can listen to my recent interview with him, from “The Argument” podcast, here, which includes a couple of my disagreements with him.

I was less impressed with the performances of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. Harris’s new health care plan was supposed to save her from having to defend the abolishment of private health insurance, and she fell back into the trap. Biden has a good case to make, but too often he didn’t appear sharp, struggled to find the precise word he wanted and almost seemed relieved when the moderators told him time was up. You can find my thoughts on each candidate here, as well as those of other Times writers. Our consensus: Booker did best, and Bill de Blasio did worst.