Democratic debate: Here are the winners and losers from the December match-up

Show Caption Hide Caption The Democratic debate brought crowds on the streets and claws on stage The Democratic debate in California drew crowds of demonstrators from all walks of life to support candidates vying for their party's nomination.

WASHINGTON – Seven candidates took the debate stage Thursday night, hoping to make a splash at the last debate before the new year.

While the Democratic field has grown and shrunk repeatedly in the past few weeks, the stage held only seven candidates — the fewest of any debate so far this cycle.

Here's a look at the winners and losers:

Winners

Joe Biden

Former Vice President Joe Biden looked stronger and more relaxed Thursday night than he has in previous debates.

When asked about how to return to “normal” after a President Donald Trump administration, Biden pushed back against the notion of just returning to business as usual, stating, "Look, I didn't say return to normal. Normal is not enough. Normal, in fact, we would have to move beyond normal, whether health care, the environment, whatever it is."

He continued to expand on working with his Republican counterparts, and that he refuses “to accept the notion, as some on this stage do, that we can never, never get to a place where we have cooperation again. If that’s the case, we’re dead as a country.”

“If anyone has reason to be angry with Republicans and not want to cooperate, it’s me. They have attacked me, my son, my family,” he said, addressing the GOP's unfounded claims that Biden strong-armed the Ukrainian government to fire its top prosecutor in order to thwart an investigation into an Ukrainian energy company company tied to his son, Hunter Biden.

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“We have to be able to get things done, and if we can’t convince them, we go out and beat them like we did in the 2018 election, in red states and in purple states,” he declared

When asked about Obama’s recent comments that there would be "significant improvement across the board" if countries were led by women, and that "old men" needed to get "out of the way," Biden joked that he is "going to guess he wasn’t talking about me either,” earning laughter from the audience.

But Biden did differentiate himself from the former president by stating he disagreed with Obama’s surge of troops in Afghanistan, and firmly quipped that he was the "guy from the beginning who argued that it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan, period. We should not have done it. And I argued against it constantly."

Through Thursday night's showing, Biden displayed himself to be the strong, experienced, and leveled politician his campaign has been trying to present.

"Joe Biden tonight looked like a frontrunner, he fought like a frontrunner, he sounded like a frontrunner, and he deserves the credit,” CNN analyst Van Jones said after the debate.

Andrew Yang

Businessman Andrew Yang jokingly asked, "I know what you're thinking, America: How am I still on this stage with them?"

While Yang hasn't missed a debate thus far, he had more airtime than previous debates, and was able to expand on his answers with fewer candidates to compete with.

Yang had a forceful answer on a question related to people with disabilities, saying "Special needs children are going to become special needs adults ... We have to stop confusing economic value and human value... We have to say 'Kyle, you have intrinsic value because you are a human being.' "

Yang also answered firmly on needing more women in leadership across the globe, and declared, "Our country is deeply misogynist ... money and men are tied together. The fact is, strong societies would elect more female leaders."

He also got some chuckles from the audience after saying, "if you get too many men alone and leave us alone for awhile, we kind of become morons."

Amy Klobuchar

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar strategically acted as a peacekeeper a few times Thursday, touting her Midwestern roots by stopping a few word-battles between other candidates on stage with a "come on, you guys." She then seamlessly dovetailed into her own stance on the issue.

She then hit Mayor Pete Buttigieg on his lack of experience, accusing him of “denigrating” the experience of the senators on stage.

“We should have someone heading up this ticket that has actually won and been able to show that they can gather the support that you talked about from moderate republicans and independents, as well as a fired-up democratic base,” Klobuchar said. “And not just done it once – I have done it three times.”

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Losers

Health care

Despite dominating the first half of the past several debates, health care took two hours to even be talked about at Thursday’s debate.

A November report by the New York Times found that health care had dominated the debates so far, with 95.4 minutes were spent on the issue, besting the second-most mentioned issue of foreign policy by over 22 minutes.

The topic was brought up at the tailend of the debate, but did not bring forth any new debate on the topic.

Julián Castro and Tulsi Gabbard

Two Democratic presidential candidates who weren’t on stage Thursday night didn’t even get name checked.

Castro and Gabbard, who didn’t qualify for December’s debate, will likely struggle to gain traction and grow their base without the national audience a debate brings. Gabbard campaigned in Manchester, New Hampshire, during the debate, while Castro on Twitter answered what his responses to the debate questions would have been.

Sen. Cory Booker, who also didn’t make the stage, was at least mentioned by entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

“I miss Kamala (Harris), I miss Cory (Booker), though I think Cory will be back,” Yang said when asked about the lack of people of color on the stage. Castro is the only Latino candidate in the 2020 presidential election. Tulsi Gabbard is Samoan American.

Gabbard is at 1.7% nationally, according to an average of polling by Real Clear Politics. Castro’s polling average is at 1.3%.

What about Mayor Pete?

Buttigieg is polling ahead of the pack in multiple early states, and came out nearly unscathed during November's match up.

That was not the case Thursday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren criticized Buttigieg on his recent fundraiser in a wine cave.

"Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States," she said.

But Buttigieg responded that he was the only one on the debate stage in Los Angeles who's not a millionaire or billionaire. He then was hit by Klobuchar for lack of experience.

"If you want to talk about the capacity to win, try putting together a coalition to bring you back to office with 80% of the vote as a gay dude in Mike Pence's Indiana," Buttigieg said to Klobuchar.

But it's unclear whether the mayor will see boost from his performance, and whether the jabs from other candidates will hurt.