Live from Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, 10 contenders squared off in the fifth Democratic presidential debate on Wednesday night. Who emerged as the current frontrunner to go up against President Trump?
Hosted by MSNBC and the Washington Post, the debate was moderated by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, MSNBC/NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’ Kristen Welker, and the Post‘s Ashley Parker. The candidates that qualified (by having more than 165,000 individual donors and at least three to five percent support in approved polls) were Joe Biden (former vice president), Cory Booker (New Jersey senator), Pete Buttigieg (mayor of South Bend, Indiana), Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris (California senator), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota senator), Bernie Sanders (Vermont senator), billionaire executive Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts senator) and former tech exec Andrew Yang.
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Coming out of the first, two-night debate in late June, Harris led our poll that asked, “Who has the best chance to defeat President Donald Trump in 2020?” (followed by Warren, Biden, Buttigieg and Sanders). In the second round of debates at the end of July, Yang came out on top, followed by Warren, Biden, Sanders and Gabbard. Yang also led our September poll following Debate No. 3 (followed by Warren, Sanders, Biden and Buttigieg) and our October poll for Debate No. 4 (followed by Warren, Buttigieg, Sanders and Biden). It should probably be noted that Yang is typically a slow starter in these debate polls, then enjoys an overnight surge.
Who from Wednesday’s 10 debaters delivered the best ideas, and delivered them well? In the new poll below, choose up to two candidates that have the best chance to defeat Trump in 2020, and then hit the comments to discuss your choices.
The sixth Democratic debate is scheduled for Dec. 19, to be held at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico.
