Hey everyone, I'm David Challey, I'm the CNN political director, and this is The Daily B.C. Thanks so much for listening. Today on the podcast, debate day one. Yes, it's finally here.
The second round of Democratic presidential debates in this nomination season. Detroit, Michigan is the location, the very home of the story of 2016 in many ways, sort of where we left off in presidential politics, how Donald Trump won the White House. He won this state that had been reliably a Democratic state since the 1980s in presidential contests, and he won it by a razor-thin margin, 10,704 votes, appealing to some of those Reagan Democrats that were created and made famous in Macomb County, but in this trying economy in the industrial Midwest, in a place like Michigan, the manufacturing economy that has upended many people's way of life, their livelihoods, as those manufacturing jobs went away. It was a particular appeal Donald Trump had, while at the same time, Hillary Clinton was not turning out African-American voters at the level that Barack Obama was when he won this state twice.
So I do think you had sort of the perfect storm right here in Michigan, which is most certainly why Democrats chose Michigan to be the place for one of their early debates in the non-for early states, just like they chose Milwaukee for their convention city. It is exactly places like this that Democrats need to juice their enthusiasm and turn out to split these states back if they are to have a chance at defeating Donald Trump and removing him from the White House. And that is clearly what the goal is for the party, even for these big debates where these primary candidates have battles to sort out between each other. Clearly, all 10 on the stage tonight, all 10 on the stage tomorrow night, are mostly focused on trying to make Donald Trump a one-term president.
And as you know, as we've discussed on this podcast, in poll after poll, Democratic voters say that that is the most important quality they're looking for in a candidate, is the ability to beat Donald Trump. It's more important than complete agreement with the voters on the issues. So it is in that context, overall, that the first group of 10 candidates will take to the stage tonight at the Fox Theater in Detroit, Michigan, moderated by my colleagues Jake Tapper, Don Lemon, Dana Bash, on that stage posing the questions. The 10 candidates on debate night one, just to remind you, Senator Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Peepe Ujic, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, John Hagen-Luper, Tim Ryan, John Delaney, Mary Williamson, and the newcomer to the debate stage, Governor Steve Bullock of Montana.
He was not one of the 20 candidates in Miami for the first round of the debate, so this will be his big introduction, his debut to a big national audience as a presidential candidate. It is because of the draw and who ended up on this stage that I think sort of sets the themes and things to watch for on the stage for this night one. First, the progressives versus the moderates. There is a clear ideological divide on the stage this evening, and this ideological divide will be on display against this larger conversation in Democratic circles.
You may have read Rahm Emanuel's op-ed about this yesterday, but there is in the establishment Democratic, more centrist Democratic circles, concern that the party has been moving too far left, that this nomination season, that where the energy is in the party right now, is pushing the party outside of the mainstream of American voters, further to the left, and may make it harder in a general election context to win over all the voters that they would need to win to beat Donald Trump. And so I think that conversation, the concern in those more centrist establishment circles about moving too far left, the demand on the left of the party, and where the energy and the fuel for the fire is, of the passion, the drive, and a real desire to change and not just restore to something that once was, but to actually change, that's animating the Democratic Party. That's part of what drove turnout among Democrats in 2018, is that even with winning with a lot of moderate Democrats, they won in places because the Democratic base was also fired up. So that conversation about whether or not the party's moving too far to the left takes place with the center stage being dominated by two leading progressive voices, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, they will be center stage tonight.
I doubt there's going to be a ton of debate between the two of them, they agree on mostly everything, they are truly friendly with one another. It is very clear though, that whatever differences they may have, Bernie calls himself a socialist, Elizabeth Warren calls herself a capitalist, their student debt loan, their student loan forgiveness program may be a little different, but there are huge gulfs between them, they agree on a lot. And so BM will look out tonight for an electability argument. Do they seek in one way or the other, both for Warren and Sanders, the way to make the case to that progressive wing of the party as to why they are the one that should carry the banner, not just for that wing of the party, but for the party overall, why they are the ones that people should push their chips towards as, as the more reliable bet that can get the Democratic party across the finish line.
I'm curious to see how each of them do that on the debate stage tonight. Standing next to them, Pete Buttigieg and Beto O'Rourke. And one of the things I'm really curious to see is if, I want to see if Beto O'Rourke and his behavior and performance tonight, does he indicate that he believes his path back to sort of serious contender status in this race with donors and voters is through Mayor Buttigieg? Does he take him on?
O'Rourke has made a couple of reboot attempts and I know there are a lot of people that have just written them off and said, oh my God, the guy dropped down to 2%. He never fulfilled all the enthusiasm that was apparent in anticipation of his entrance into the race. He's been going down ever since. His fundraising looks like it's starting to dry up.
All those things. Have I written and said about that, O'Rourke? But watch him tonight vis-a-vis Pete Buttigieg, who obviously had a gangbusters fundraising quarter, but who is still struggling to be part of that top tier. Sanders Warren, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden, of course.
So if O'Rourke starts to try to take on Buttigieg, in certain ways it seems to me he's acknowledging he sees his path back into this race as somebody that will be a real force is through Buttigieg that they are taking off the same lane and that he sees those voters as available to him. We'll see. I don't know if O'Rourke, who is reluctant to draw sharp distinctions, who is much more committed to his sort of inspirational appeal. I'll be very curious to see if he does that.
And then, of course, the other thing to watch for tonight is the 1% crowd. I mean, this is do or die for about half the candidates on the stage. They're not likely to make it to the next debate stage without a dramatically winning moment tonight that can breathe new life into their candidacies. As you know, the DNC has doubled the threshold, so the real winnowing process is to begin, doubled the polling threshold, doubled the fundraising threshold to get on that debate stage in September.
And so, if you are a John Delaney, a Tim Ryan, a John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock, Mary Williamson, if you're in that, I don't know, bottom five or so for the polling on the stage tonight, this is a do or die moment. You either need a real big win here and a breakthrough, or your candidacy is very much at risk of coming to an end before too long. Just because, yes, you may have some money in the bank, yes, you can live off the land, yes, you may have developed some support, you can still buy a plane ticket to Iowa, but you're going to be starved of oxygen, and it's just going to be far more complicated as we go into the end of the third quarter fundraising period and as we go into this period where we're getting to the debate stage so much harder, it's just going to be a lot tougher after tonight for those folks to really be a part of the conversation without showing some real sense of growing support. And that's why being in front of such a huge national audience as a debate gets you is one of those just rare opportunities to actually make that happen.
So that's the other thing I'm watching to see is how those folks sort of take advantage of what the opportunity is for them tonight. So that's sort of what to watch for on night one of these Democratic presidential debates. It all begins on CNN at 8 p.m. Eastern, live from Detroit, Michigan.
I certainly hope you'll be tuning in, and please tune back in to The Daily DC tomorrow for the highlights of debate one, and we'll look forward to debate two.