On June 26, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., will share the same Democratic primary debate stage as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, a backbench lawmaker currently attracting 0 to 1% support.
The status gap will be even starker at the next night’s Democratic National Committee-sponsored debate. Former Vice President Joe Biden will appear on the same stage as businessman Andrew Yang and self-help guru Marianne Williamson.
These lesser-known candidates will face a challenge of striking a balance between commanding attention with zing-y attacks and presenting an authentic message that resonates with voters.
In an effort to prevent an “undercard” debate, the Democratic National Committee split candidates with polling averages above 2% and candidates with polling averages below 2% over two debate nights. Warren, rising in several polls, will take the stage with Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on June 26, among other candidates.
Analysts and strategists estimate that over two nights, each of the 20 candidates will each get five to 10 minutes of speaking time. Because the front-runners will likely get disproportionate amounts of time, lower-tier and lesser-known candidates will “really have to interject yourself during the right places of the debate in order to get some kind of additional coverage,” Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan, told the Washington Examiner.
“Every candidate wants a soundbite, a zinger to go viral and then get additional coverage,” said Kall, who edited a book that analyzed President Trump’s debate style in the 2016 Republican primary cycle.
Attacking front-runners could be a “smart strategy” to attract more time and attention, Kall said, but he warned that “it can always backfire and play to the advantage of someone like Biden.”
For instance, Yang took aim at Joe Biden for skipping the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame forum where 19 candidates spoke. “When I saw the program for today, I thought the same thing you all did, which is this: Joe Biden must really not like to travel,” Yang told the crowd in Iowa.
Biden later used Yang’s attack to garner sympathy. “My granddaughter was graduating. It was my daughter’s birthday. I would skip inauguration for that,” Biden said at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. on Monday.
Democratic strategist Jennifer Holdsworth, who ran South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s 2017 campaign for DNC chair, said that the candidates should focus on communicating their policy priorities rather than trying to stand out with attacks.
“They need to be their most authentic self. It’s counterintuitive,” Holdsworth told the Washington Examiner. “If you come to the debate stage with one-liners and zingers or even a full-court press against Donald Trump, that’s not going to be a winning strategy.
“You may get a laugh and you may get quoted and it may be memorable in terms of the Twitterverse, but the folks who really stand out are going to be the ones that connect directly with the TV audience, that speak to what is in every voter’s heart right now,” Holdsworth said.
Candidates who qualified for the first round of primary debates met requirements of at least 1% support in three qualifying polls or 65,000 donors, with at least 200 donors in 20 states. The second round of Democratic primary debates set for July has the same requirements, with tie-breaking procedures in the event more than 20 candidates qualify for the 20 debate spots.
