Standing side by side in Detroit, the two candidates whose clash over race and school integration defined the first round of debates in June engaged each other at once on the question of how to cover Americans’ medical costs. This time Biden took the offensive, noting that Harris had rolled out “several plans so far,” the most recent of which would take 10 years to kick in and cost trillions to disrupt the existing system of private insurance.
Voters, Biden said, should be skeptical “anytime somebody tells you you’re going to get something good in 10 years.”
Harris fired back quickly. “You’re just simply inaccurate in what you’re describing,” she said, countering that Biden’s proposal to create an elective government-backed health insurance option would leave many Americans uncovered.
“Your plan, by contrast, leaves out almost 10 million Americans,” she said, adding, “The cost of doing nothing is far too expensive.”
But Biden persisted. Echoing some of the criticism that centrist Democrats leveled against Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in Tuesday night’s debate, the former vice president warned that Harris’ plan would be costly, disruptive and slow to take effect.
Defending his own proposal, Biden called it a prudent update to the system devised under the Obama administration.
“My response is: Obamacare is working,” he said.
It was the second night of lengthy and contentious exchanges among the candidates over the future of health care in the country. Like the 10 contenders who debated Tuesday, the candidates split over whether the country should retain some form of the Affordable Care Act or completely transform the system into some form of “Medicare for All.”
The exchanges over health care on both nights exposed a fundamental schism in the party, between more traditional reformers who are seeking to improve on the policies of the Obama administration and aggressive liberals who hope to overhaul the U.S. economy and government in a comprehensive way.
At several early moments in the debate, other candidates onstage exhorted Democrats to keep their attention on President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s efforts to strike down the Affordable Care Act. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York told viewers that for Republicans, “their whole goal is to take away your health care,” while Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey lamented that “the person enjoying this debate most right now is Donald Trump.” He implored Democratic rivals to stop “saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn’t care enough.”
Yet there were signs early on that even the lower-profile candidates onstage were looking to shake up the race through confrontation. Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, for instance, used his opening statement to blast both the leading candidates onstage, Biden and Harris, depicting them as guardians of the status quo and vowing that he would “tax the hell out of the wealthy.”
“Joe Biden told wealthy donors that nothing, fundamentally, would change if he were president; Kamala Harris said she’s not trying to restructure society,” de Blasio said, countering: “Well, I am.”
But even de Blasio, who is currently an asterisk in the polls, could not escape controversy: His opening remarks were interrupted by protesters bellowing, “Fire Pantaleo” — a reference to the New York City police officer whose rough physical treatment of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, led to his death in 2014, and whose status on the force remains unresolved.
If Tuesday’s debate defined the ideological gulf within the Democratic Party, in unmistakable and often contentious terms, the Wednesday debate appeared likely to play out as a more complicated and personality-driven affair, featuring layers of political feuds and interlocking arguments over policy and electoral strategy.
The first debate put two liberals, Warren of Massachusetts and Sanders, center stage, where they were forced to defend their ideas from a centrist onslaught. The second debate was expected to be shaped, more than anything else, by the comparatively moderate front-runner, Biden.
Conflict between Biden and Harris had the potential to define the evening, after their first clash in the June debate in Miami jolted both their candidacies and threatened to harm Biden’s. In that event, Harris delivered a searing rebuke of Biden’s political and legislative judgment, assailing the former vice president for having worked with segregationist senators in the 1970s to oppose school busing — a policy, she noted, that aided her own path through the public schools in Berkeley, California.
Biden was left grasping for a rebuttal and afterward indicated that he was personally stung by the attack; the contrast between Harris assured critique, and his unsteady response dented Biden’s support in polls, where Democratic voters have tended to back him chiefly because they see him as a strong competitor for the general election against Trump.
Yet Biden appears to have recovered much of his strength in polls over the intervening month. And while Harris’ support has risen, it is not clear whether she has managed to convert her debate-stage electricity into sustained gains: In many polls, she still trails not only Biden but also Warren and Sanders.
Biden signaled his early broadsides against Harris in the days before the debate, indicating that he was prepared to go after Harris aggressively on matters of policy and most of all on the proposal for a modified Medicare for All health care system that she unveiled Monday. Aimed in part at preempting criticism from Biden, her plan includes a longer phase-in period and a larger role for private insurance than the single-payer plan Sanders has championed. But it drew instant criticism from the left and the relative center for watering down Sanders’ ideas for a comprehensive overhaul without achieving the pragmatism of Biden’s vision.
Harris, meanwhile, declined to telegraph her own offensive strategy in advance of the debate — the same discreet approach she took ahead of the Miami event that galvanized her campaign.
Biden’s paramount task in the debate may have been to allay Democrats’ angst about his strength as a general election candidate. Polls show most voters consistently name him as the Democrat best equipped to defeat Trump, but his unsteady first debate plainly raised doubts. And Biden has not put to rest serious concerns across the party about his ability to inspire much of the Democratic base, especially younger and more liberal voters — people who may be more drawn to Harris, or to Warren or Sanders.
If the challengers onstage Wednesday, like Harris, are to threaten Biden’s overall advantage in the race, they will likely have to explain to voters why they are better prepared than he is to take on Trump in states like Michigan.
But Biden and Harris were not alone onstage Wednesday, and the diverse array of competitors joining them was expected to present challenges for both, particularly for the former vice president. Perhaps most vexing was the presence of three liberals who are seeking a breakthrough moment and who have not hesitated to draw sharp distinctions in the campaign: Booker, and Gillibrand and Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and federal housing secretary.
In his first debate in June, Castro startled the Democratic field with his uncharacteristically combative approach, harrying former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas with persistent attacks on his immigration proposals. There was ample material in the records of both Biden and Harris to invite the same approach.
And Gillibrand — who like Castro is struggling to qualify for the third round of debates in September — appeared to have provided a preview of an intended attack on Biden last weekend, alluding on the campaign trail to a candidate who had questioned the value of women working outside the home. Advisers to the former vice president took it as a reference to his opposition in the early 1980s to an expanded child tax credit; even before the debate got underway they circulated a memo to supporters predicting she and others onstage would attempt “to knock out Biden.”
But the most unpredictable figure may be Booker. Though not a brawler by nature, he has been increasingly eager to highlight differences between his record and Biden’s on criminal justice, recently calling him “the proud architect of a failed system.” Booker has been building a substantial field operation on the ground in the early primary states and methodically collecting endorsements from local power brokers there, but he has so far lacked a moment of ignition on the national level.
By his presence, though, Booker had the potential to transform the dynamics that ruled the first Biden-Harris debate in June: When Harris confronted Biden the first time, she did so as the only candidate of color onstage. Now, Biden will be sandwiched between Harris and Booker, two candidates who have been sharply critical of his record and who represent a glaring contrast in age and identity. Both African American senators believe they must crack Biden’s strong support with black voters in order to win the nomination.
Two potential wild cards were Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, an anti-war candidate who has repeatedly defended Biden from Harris’ criticism, and Andrew Yang, a former tech executive running as a political outsider. Yang prepared for the debate in part by making light of his competitors’ public chest-thumping and vowing theatrically on Twitter to take down a candidate of similar obscurity.
“I would like to signal to the press that I will be attacking Michael Bennet at next week’s debate,” he wrote. “Sorry @MichaelBennet but you know what you did.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.