The town hall forum - not a debate! - is over.
Now, with six days to go until the Iowa caucuses kick off the presidential primaries in earnest, a few takeaways from tonight’s proceedings:
- Humor counts: As usual, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders was avuncular and amusing, the “gruff uncle” stereotype that he’s been labeled with since he first came on the national political scene as a long-shot socialist candidate six months ago. But whether he was joking about how he was “too fat” to keep his coat buttoned up or going after moderator Chris Cuomo for cutting into his speaking time, Sanders’s humor showcased the authenticity that has attracted so many fans to his campaign. Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton have never been cut-ups, exactly, and their unease with jokes makes it harder for them to come across as three-dimensional humans. Point: Sanders.
- Barack Obama counts too: He may still be a divisive figure nationally, but within the Democratic party, the president is still widely respected as a would-be consensus builder - and the three candidates’ approach to his legacy is indicative of that respect within the party base. On the heels of the president’s podcast interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush - in which he called her “wicked smart” - Clinton highlighted that relationship. “We ran a really hard race against each other,” Clinton said, “and then I had the opportunity when he asked me to serve as his secretary of state ... and it turned into a real friendship. He knows how hard the job is, he knows it first-hand.” Highlighting that relationship may go a fair way in convincing voters that if Obama can trust her, they can, too. Point: Clinton.
- “Campaign in poetry, govern in prose”: The former secretary of state waxed philosophical about the difference between running a campaign and running a country - a not-so-subtle criticism of Sanders, whose appeal she sees as built more on a foundation of idealism than pragmatism. Pie-in-the-sky advertisements with Simon & Garfunkel tunes in the background are nice, Clinton seems to be saying, but as she told Cuomo, “there is no time in human history where everything is going well.” Counterpoint: She tried the same line of attack against Barack Obama, and she ended up working for him. Point: Sanders.
- Personal narrative can be effective: How many Americans are familiar with the story of Bernie Sanders’s father? Eli Sanders was born in Słopnice, Poland, to a Jewish family and emigrated to the United States in 1921. Most of his family was killed in the Holocaust. When Sanders, whose chief emotion on public display is crankiness, discussed how his parents would have felt had they known he would become a US senator and presidential candidate, it showed a personal side to the candidate that few realized was there. “It’s certainly something that I don’t think they’d ever believe would’ve happened,” Sanders said, his eyes clouding over. This may have been his version of Clinton’s famous campaign stop tears. Point: Sanders.
- Martin O’Malley is done: He has run a clean campaign, he has focused on energy and investment in cities and youth and hope and sunshine and biceps and guitar, but O’Malley’s time is up. When Kentucky senator Rand Paul won’t even bother making fun of you on Twitter, it’s time to throw in the towel. Point: O’Malley, because he’s probably tired, too.
That’s all from me. See you next time.
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When asked which president she admired most, Clinton is put in an (understandably awkward position).
Sorry, president Obama, sorry Bill... Abraham Lincoln.
“While he was prosecuting that war to keep that Union together, he was building America,” Clinton says, mentioned the trans-continental railroad and land-grant universities. “He was thinking about the future while in the middle of trying to decide which general he could trust to win the war... He kept his eye on the future.”
“Let’s think ourselves not only what we have to do right now,” Clinton says, “but let’s also think about how we do try to summon up those better angels, and to treat each other with more respect and agree to disagree more civilly.”
Hillary Clinton watches possibly the smiliest campaign advertisement this side of a Coke commercial, courtesy of the Sanders campaign:
“I think that’s great,” Clinton says. “I think that’s fabulous, I loved it!”
Hillary being made to watch Bernie's ad is like Mariah being made to listen to Ariana Grande pic.twitter.com/5xDzitBakG
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) January 26, 2016
"I loved it!" Hillary says of Bernie's campaign ad pic.twitter.com/iPWZfRbvn2
— Independent Journal (@INJO) January 26, 2016
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Hillary Clinton answers a question on Benghazi:
I understand that they will try to make this an issue - I will continue to answer, and my defense is the truth.
Bernie Sanders’s first question at tonight’s Democratic forum was to explain he’s a socialist; Hillary Clinton was asked to explain why young people don’t like her and think she’s dishonest, notes Lucia Graves.
There’s a long history of calling female candidates dishonest, and Clinton in particular has spent decades fighting off such gendered attacks. I’ve written before about why women in power are typically seen as less trustworthy than men in the same positions, but it bears revisiting tonight.
Clinton’s response started out as a wooden lecture how she intended to go about winning, and vague remarks about how she was “totally excited about young people getting involved in any way”, but she soon pivoted to something more personal. While she didn’t call out the gendered nature of the attack explicitly, the tenor was there in her comments that she’s been around long enough that “people have thrown all kinds of things” at her.
The irony is Clinton’s part of the forum explicitly started with a conversation with the moderator about how Barack Obama had said in an interview Clinton had to put up with attacks she didn’t deserve.
An American Muslim who served in the Air Force asks Clinton: With the rise in Islamophobia, how can Clinton make America a safe place to raise her family?
Hillary’s impassioned answer: After thanking the questioner for her service, Clinton says that “one of the most distressing aspects of this campaign has been the language of Republican candidates, particularly their frontrunner, that insults, demeans, and denigrates different people.” Donald Trump “has cast a wide net,” Clinton says, but has been “particularly harmful [in] the way that he has talked about Muslims.”
Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric is “shameful and contrary to our values,” Clinton says, and to claim that there are no real Muslims who share American values is not only inaccurate, “it’s dangerous.”
“American Muslims deserve better, and now their children and they are the target of Islamophobia and threats,” Clinton says. “We cannot tolerate this - we must stand up and say everybody in this country deserves to be treated with respect.”
“There’s another element to this that I want to mention,” Clinton says, warning that alienating Muslims around the world is a terrible way to build the kind of international coalition in the Middle East necessary to confront Isis. It’s hard to get people to join you in war, Clinton says, “if you spend your time insulting their religion. We need to stand up and point out how wrong this is.”
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Although she regrets the “mistake” of her vote in support of giving George W Bush the ability to invade Iraq, Clinton says that “the American public has seen me exercising judgment in a lot of other ways”.
“I spent so much of my time getting back the the confidence and trust of our allies around the world,” she continued, “so I think that we made a lot of progress!”
“There is no time in human history where everything is going well,” Clinton concludes, somewhat un-inspiringly.
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From Drake University:
Hillary Clinton is going after "they" like she was @djkhaled
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 26, 2016
Checking in with Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who has been ragetweeting all night:
The most important take-away from the entire #DemTownHall will be: #TANSTAFL pic.twitter.com/LlLKhx7sik
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
Another Iowa caucus-goer leaning towards Bernie asks Clinton: How do we know you care about income inequality?
“I have a 40-year record of going against inequality,” Clinton says, including “racial inequality, sexist inequality, homophobic inequality”.
“I went after schools that were being turned into private schools that were really there because they wanted to escape integration in the south,” Clinton says of her time at the Children’s Defense Fund.
“I was in that fight during my husband’s administration - and let’s remember what happened there,” Clinton says, highlighting the economic halcyon days of the Clinton administration, which oversaw the largest sustained period of economic expansion in history.
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“I’ve been around a long time - people have thrown all kinds of things at me,” Clinton says, about criticism against her for perceived dishonesty. “They throw all this stuff at me, and I’m still standing.”
Clinton says that she’s exhilarated by the pressure she’s facing from socialist senator Bernie Sanders, drawing comparisons to the Republican primary. “The three of us have run a campaign talking about the differences we have on issues... the other side is not talking issues, it’s throwing insults,” Clinton said.
“You have to pick a president and a commander in chief, and you have to really vet the people who are running,” Clinton said.
Updated
And she’s on!
Hillary joins Chris Cuomo - brother of the New York governor, Andrew, who has endorsed her - and is immediately lauded with news of her (other) endorsements or semi-endorsements, including the description “wicked smart” by Barack Obama.
“We ran a really hard race against each other,” Clinton says about her relationship with Obama, “and then I had the opportunity when he asked me to serve as his secretary of state ... and it turned into a real friendship. He knows how hard the job is, he knows it first-hand.”
“I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary to build on the progress that we’ve made” in the Obama White House, Clinton says, “against great odds.”
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Hillary Clinton at the #DemTownHall #DemForum pic.twitter.com/dR1hPpYyzG
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) January 26, 2016
“My candidacy is in your hands – do with it what you will” may not be the most inspiring message one week before the Iowa caucuses, but it’s what Martin O’Malley’s got.
Next up: Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Hold strong at your caucus!
O’Malley urges his followers to not make a break for other candidates, especially if they don’t make the so-called 15% rule, which the Guardian’s Ben Jacobs did a good job untangling:
To be viable in each precinct, a candidate usually needs to receive the support of 15% of those who attend, although in some small rural precincts, the threshold is higher.
If a candidate’s support is under that threshold, his or her supporters need to induce others to join their group in order to reach 15%. If they are unsuccessful in doing so, their candidate is not considered viable and they can either go home or support a candidate who is viable instead. There is then a second count of supporters for each candidate and, from those totals, delegates are assigned.
This means that if Democratic candidates are polling under 15% statewide on caucus night, they could significantly underperform compared to their polling.
For more on how the Iowa caucuses work, check out the full article here:
And here’s a video for good measure:
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A caucus-goer asks the first LGBT-oriented question in... well, basically since we can remember: “What would you do as president to allow us to acquire full equality on the federal level?”
O’Malley, who was governor of Maryland when it passed same-sex marriage at the ballot, pushes his record on LGBT rights: “The broader arc of American history,” O’Malley says, is that “in every generation, we take actions to include people more fully” in the American dream. After citing the passage of same-sex marriage in Maryland, O’Malley notes that he “also passed a transgender anti-discrimination bill as well”, an achievement met with a wide round of applause.
“It’s really about our kids - it’s about all our kids,” O’Malley says. “There is dignity in every child’s home... because that’s what makes us stronger as a country.”
Updated
Martin O'Malley: "We're the only species on the planet without full employment.” Come on. Ever heard of sloths? #DemTownHall #DemForum
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) January 26, 2016
Martin O’Malley draws a clear contrast between himself and socialist senator Bernie Sanders:
My story is not of a Democratic conversion - my story is that of a Democratic upbringing.
:-(
I can't bring myself to live tweet Martin O'Malley, sorry Twitter. #DemTownHall
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
#RealTalk: Martin O’Malley is well suited for a town hall-style event - and not just because it’s the only time he gets a chance to talk. He’s a bit of a wonk, with big ideas and a lot of anecdotal evidence from his time as a mayor and governor to back them up. Unfortunately for O’Malley, indefatigable positivity isn’t holding this cycle’s electorate as entranced as it has in years before - as demonstrated by this incredibly lonely Iowa campaign event from last month...
A 23-year-old Drake University student’s question: What issue should be most important to young voters and why - and don’t just repeat “debt-free college,” please.
O’Malley’s answer: “That is climate change,” met with massive applause. “Climate change is the greatest business opportunity to come to the United States in one hundred years.” He also mugs for the hometown audience: “This is another one of those instances where Iowa is pointing the way forward - 30 to 35 percent of your energy now comes from clean, Iowa wind.”
Question: How would you lessen the burden of healthcare costs on the middle class?
O’Malley’s answer, after taking off his blazer because he means business: “We have to improve” Obamacare, but “we need to change what it is that we actually pay for - to put wellness at the center.”
“We can dial up wellness, we can reduce the expense here, and that’s the future, I believe.”
He doesn't have a prayer... Martin O'Malley #DemTownHall #DemForum pic.twitter.com/IeIebF4aDm
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) January 26, 2016
Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley joins the stage with rock-bottom poll numbers - and immediately knocks the people conducting those polls.
“With only three of us in the Democratic primary, there’s only one of us who can still upset the apple cart!”
This morning, Barack Obama played pundit in a podcast interview - the Guardian’s Alan Yuhas points out the president’s respect for Bernie Sanders, who he calls “fearless”:
“There’s no doubt that Bernie has tapped into a running thread in Democratic politics,” Obama told Politico in a podcast, saying that thread asked: “Why are we still constrained by the terms of the debate that were set by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago?
“You know, why is it that we should be scared to challenge conventional wisdom and talk bluntly about inequality and, you know, be full-throated in our progressivism?”
But although Obama said he understood Sanders’ appeal, he downplayed any similarities between his upstart 2008 campaign and the 73-year-old senator’s surprise popularity with diverse and young voters.
Obama applauded Sanders, nonetheless, and conceded he did not know the senator as well as Clinton. Sanders “has the virtue of saying exactly what he believes, and great authenticity, great passion, and is fearless”, he said. “His attitude is, ‘I got nothing to lose.’”
They wouldn’t believe it.
Bernie gets emotional talking about his family, led by a father who emigrated to Brooklyn, New York, from Poland, where most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust. “It’s certainly something that I don’t think they’d ever believe would’ve happened,” Sanders said, of his rise to political prominence.
Updated
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is easily winning the comedy primary tonight with his ribbing of Chris Cuomo. The moderator, who asked Sanders to sit down after standing up to answer a series of audience questions, tells Sanders he is “tired of following you around, sir.”
“If you’da followed me around today you’d be a lot more tired,” Sanders deadpans.
Told he is 75, Bernie replies: "I'm 74!" You're going on 75... "I'm going on 75 - so are you!" #demforum #DemTownHall
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) January 26, 2016
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Bernie Sanders restates his support for shield laws that keep gun manufacturers from being legally liable for violence committed using their products:
If you are a small gun shop in Vermont and I legally sell you a weapon ... I think the gun shop owner should not be held liable for your criminal act, that’s what I believe.
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Asked about his level of experience compared to Hillary Clinton’s, Sanders says:
Bernie Sanders: "This calls for a standing-up response" #DemTownHall #DemForum pic.twitter.com/M8IOpMeGm1
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) January 26, 2016
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Bernie Sanders doubles down on comparing opponent Hillary Clinton to loathed former vice president Dick Cheney - at least, from an experience level:
He had a lot of experience too!”
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Reporting from Bernie Sanders’ campaign headquarters in Burlington, Vermont, the Guardian’s Dan Roberts points out that even the senator himself is surprised by how far he has gone in the past six months:
“Truth be told, did any of us really, truly in our heart of hearts believe that six months later he was going to be kind of winning?” says environmentalist Bill McKibben as he recalls how far this so-called fringe candidate has come since he launched his campaign from a Burlington park in June.
Perhaps more than for any other leading candidate in the 2016 election, the next seven days are make or break for Sanders. If he can beat Clinton in the Iowa caucus, it won’t destroy her or win him the Democratic nomination, but it will raise the possibility that the wave of support could build – first in New Hampshire and then perhaps in Nevada or several Super Tuesday states. If the surge dissipates on the prairies of Iowa, even a win in the New Hampshire primary a week later may not be enough to dispel the inevitable feeling that the revolutionary moment has passed.
Given his tweetstream, Kentucky senator Rand Paul may be being forced to watch the Democratic town hall forum Clockwork Orange-style.
I FEEL LIKE THIS ENTIRE #DEMTOWNHALL SO FAR HAS BEEN IN ALL CAPS
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
In the wake of a maladroit answer to a question about Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton, Sanders addresses a college student’s question about how he would be a better candidate for women’s issues than Hillary Clinton.
Sanders’ answer: After touting his 100-percent rating from Planned Parenthood, Sanders declares “we should expand funding for Planned Parenthood”.
“If you have a hundred-percent Planned Parenthood voting record, a hundred-percent pro-choice voting record, why is the leadership either not supporting Bernie Sanders, or why are they opposing him?” Sanders asks rhetorically.
As for being compared to a female candidate on women’s issues: “If you look at my record in terms of fighting for women’s rights, I think there are very few members of Congress who have a stronger record,” Sanders says.
“We’re gonna fight for pay equity to make sure that everybody earns the same amount for the same work.” He also calls for raising the national minimum wage, which would disproportionately impact women.
As moderator Chris Cuomo tries to cut into Sanders’ answer, he dismisses the interruption with a wave of his hand. “I’m trying to win her vote - leave me alone, here!”
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Most of the Republican candidates seem to be ignoring tonight’s Democratic presidential forum, but Kentucky senator Rand Paul - whose libertarian-leaning ideology couldn’t be further from Sanders’ self-proclaimed socialism - is ragetweeting enough for the entire field combined:
Here comes @BernieSanders! I predict he spends a trillion dollars in the first give minutes. Someone tally it. #DemTownHall
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
Sanders talks about Campaign Finance Reform and that too many people are trying to buy things and people in Washington. (1/2) #DemTownHall
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
But I have a different solution. Don't limit speech. Make the government smaller so people have no incentive to buy it #DemTownHall
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
.@BernieSanders just spent five minutes telling you what he thinks a socialist is. I can do it faster. #DemTownHall
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
Gov’t involvement never works. Gov’t involvement in healthcare raised prices & gov’t involvement in ed raised tuition costs #DemTownHall
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2016
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Sanders is asked whether he wants to bring back the “era of big government”. He says Wall Street should pay its way.
Pressed on the question, Sanders says every child should be able to get a higher education, and he will pay for that with financial taxes.
Pressed again, he says social security should be expanded. That gets a round of applause.
He says he will take on the greed of corporate America and Wall Street and will fight for the middle class.
Sanders is asked about his healthcare plan - is it a huge tax rise? He says it will save each person so much money, no one will see it like that. But he admits it also entails a tax rise.
The first question: Can you elaborate on your definition of socialism?
Sanders’ answer: Socialism means that “economic rights - the right for economic security - should exist in the United States of America”.
“There’s something wrong when the rich get richer and almost everybody else gets poorer,” Sanders continues. Citing Scandinavia and Germany as examples of democratic socialism in action, Sanders declares that “the ideas that I am talking about are not radical ideas”.
Socialism, “in its essence,” entails a government for everyone, not a “government dominated by the billionaire class”.
Updated
Well, there’s our quote of the night.
"My wife told me to button my coat, but I think I'm too fat, so..." – Bernie Sanders
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) January 26, 2016
Bernie Sanders at the cnn democratic forum #DemTownHall #DemForum pic.twitter.com/fsIyvFoin4
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) January 26, 2016
It begins!
With just a week left until the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley will make what CNN is calling their “closing arguments” at Drake University. The event, moderated by Chris Cuomo, CNN anchor-slash-brother of a Hillary-supporting governor of New York, airs as both Clinton and Sanders are neck-and-neck in Iowa.
Reminder for those who can’t figure out which channel CNN is on, the network is streaming the town hall on CNN.com.
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As both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders champion their causes tonight in Iowa, the Guardian’s Richard Wolffe reports that their differing styles are coming into clearer contrast. Clinton works methodically and channels Al Gore – while Sanders likens himself to Barack Obama, despite vastly different policies:
As they enter their final week of campaigning in Iowa, the two Democratic frontrunners are turning out very different versions of the same party in the same state. Both can make a credible claim to feeling that victory is within reach, depending on which polls you choose to believe.
For Clinton, victory in Iowa would go a long way to silence her Democratic doubters and deliver a reality check to the unexpectedly strong challenge from the proudly socialist senator from Vermont. Her campaign was particularly excited by its Des Moines Register endorsement on Saturday, as the leading Iowa newspaper praised the depth and breadth of “her knowledge and experience”.
For Sanders, victory in Iowa would send shockwaves through the party establishment and suggest that the party’s base was more interested in progressive idealism than presidential power. Sanders is heading to a resounding victory in New Hampshire, next door to his home state of Vermont, setting up epic battles to secure pole position in Nevada and South Carolina in the second half of February.
In these final days of the Iowa campaign, the two candidates have chosen to model themselves on two different Democratic presidents. But in both cases, the comparisons are not entirely convincing or flattering.
I’ve been outside tonight’s (admittedly snowy) venue for an hour and I’ve yet to see a Hillary Clinton sign let alone a supporter. Not a very scientific poll, but...
The Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui reports from Des Moines, Iowa, where the eternally pugnacious Chris Christie had some post-blizzard cleanup tips from a New Jersey voter:
Chris Christie was defiant about campaigning in New Hampshire on Monday when confronted by a young woman at a town hall in Hooksett on why he was not home in New Jersey amid devastating flooding on the state’s southern shorefront.
The woman, who identified herself as a student from New Jersey, said she had received calls from family and friends who were seeking justification for Christie’s absence.
“Well, because it’s already done, it’s already done,” the governor responded, before asking her to name where the problems persisted.
When the woman said she had received pictures and videos from family and friends of flooding “all over the state,” Christie grew incredulous and shot back: “Really?”
“There’s been one county that’s flooded in the state - one county … So I don’t know where from ‘all over the state,’ since we have 21 counties, where that’s happened.”
“Second, I don’t know what you want me to do, you want me to go down there with a mop?” he added.
“All of the water had receded back, so for your friends and family, who are concerned about why I’m not there, I just wonder what it is they think I’d be doing today. You know, I’m the governor, not the chief engineer.
Christie has faced mounting criticism in recent days from residents and reporters alike in New Jersey for seeming dismissive of what has been described as record flooding in some areas comparable to the Hurricane Sandy superstore of 2012.
In some Cape May County Shore towns, the surge of flooding - a consequence of the weekend’s winter storm - has been recorded at more than 9 feet. Some insurance experts have estimated the financial toll of the storm could reach billions of dollars.
Christie downplayed the storm’s impact earlier Monday during an appearance on MSNBC, insisting there was “no residual flooding damage” and that people were simply out to criticize him as he runs for president.
“I haven’t seen any of that criticism and I think you’re just making it up,” Christie told a reporter on the network when asked to respond to the negative press.
The governor returned to New Jersey over the weekend for one day, cutting short a six-day swing through New Hampshire. One of Christie’s fellow Republican contenders, Florida senator Marco Rubio, took a jab at him on Monday for essentially being shamed into returning to New Jersey.
“When the storm was coming down and they knew it was going to head there, he didn’t want to leave campaign trail - he wanted to keep running for president,” Rubio told reporters after a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. “Only after it became impossible was he forced to go back to New Jersey.”
Rubio and Christie have been engaged in an ongoing feud while competing in New Hampshire, which will hold its primary on February 9. Over the weekend, Christie took umbrage with Rubio for joking that the snowstorm was “one of the best things to happen to the republic in a while” because it shut down Washington.
“Fourteen people died across the country, and that shows a real immaturity from Senator Rubio to be joking as families were freezing in the cold, losing power and some of them losing their loved ones,” Christie said on Sunday.
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The Guardian’s Dan Roberts forwarded us a vivid - some might even say garish - demonstration of the enthusiasm gap between Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in the form of this Iowa woman’s day-glo Bernie sign:
“It all depends on getting people out to vote.”
Want to catch up on today in politics before the Democratic presidential forum? Check out the Guardian’s liveblog from earlier today:
Fight night! Kind of!
Tonight, the three remaining Democratic candidates meet for what is definitely, absolutely, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die not a debate in Des Moines, Iowa. The “candidates forum,” hosted by CNN at 9pm, will feature former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.
What’s the difference between a forum and a debate? No cross-talk among the candidates. In fact, none of the three candidates will even appear onstage at the same time, save for a possible photo opportunity at the opening and/or closing of the forum. They may refer to criticisms from previous speakers, they may engage in straw-man arguments with those who have yet to take the stage, they may even pull a Clint Eastwood and yell at a vacant chair in lieu of their real-life opponent, but they can not debate.
The last time they did this was on 6 November 2015, in South Carolina (check out our coverage here). This time, the proceedings are being held at Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium and are hosted by Chris Cuomo, brother of the New York governor, who happens to have endorsed Clinton.
One week before the Iowa caucuses, the forum takes place at a crucial point in the campaign. Sanders and Clinton are neck-and-neck among likely caucus-goers, with the former secretary of state desperate for a breakout that returns her to the status of presumptive nominee.
