Who did the worst at the 2nd night debate?

[NeederNodder]

Biden lost the most when Harris took him to town with her story of being bused.

Marianne didn't have the worst performance since she really had nothing to lose in the first place.

[Gracile]

I think some people are simply voting for their least favorite candidate. Biden was far from impressive, but I don't think he came across as nearly as desperate as Swalwell or Hickenlooper. Don't see a case for Sanders, since it was a pretty typical performance for him. Not the best, but not terrible by any means. Voted Swalwell.

I think it's more a case of voting for who performed worse relative to expectations. I don't think a lot of people expected much from Swalwell or Williamson in the first place, but for a supposed frontrunner like Biden, an underperformance is more apparent.

[OneJ]

Maybe I should have voted Swalwell, but Biden’s performance is still at the bottom and he has the most to lose (not saying that he’ll actually lose support).

[Xing]

I think some people are simply voting for their least favorite candidate. Biden was far from impressive, but I don't think he came across as nearly as desperate as Swalwell or Hickenlooper. Don't see a case for Sanders, since it was a pretty typical performance for him. Not the best, but not terrible by any means. Voted Swalwell.

I think it's more a case of voting for who performed worse relative to expectations. I don't think a lot of people expected much from Swalwell or Williamson in the first place, but for a supposed frontrunner like Biden, an underperformance is more apparent.

I think that's a different question, though, since the topic is just who did the "worst." Given that Biden's in first place, simply not winning the debate decisively would be doing badly relative to expectations. And I would say that Biden did about as well as I personally would have expected (i.e. not terrific at all.)

[The3rdParty]

Bernie and Biden were bad and considering they had the most to lose they did the worst, but I'd give a special mention to Williamson as she was a disaster with no plans but was polling at 0 percent anyways

[wesmoorenerd]

Biden probably did the worst relative to his prior support. Yang and Swalwell did the worst in an objective sense.

[Sorenroy]

Best to worst:

1. Harris — A lot of the talk I had seen around how Biden could quickly snatch the nomination was the idea that he could become a consensus candidate. Not necessarily everyone's favorite, but someone who could put together a winning coalition by uniting parts of the different party factions. However, coming out of this debate, I see Harris as the one best able to do that. Not only was she able to speak about the issues (and get a decent amount of time to do so), she also was able to get one of the most sensational moments of the debate; something that will be important in tomorrow's coverage of what happened.

2. Gillibrand — Similar to Harris, Gillibrand was able to make an imprint on the stage by positioning herself as the candidate on the left. While I think Sanders did fine, Gillibrand made a good effort in answering the question "If everyone has my same views, why are they running?" As I said in the other thread, in the case of a Sanders collapse I could see her getting a disproportionate amount of his second place support.

3. Bennet — Honestly, I was impressed by Bennet's performance this evening. He didn't strike me as anything special, but with O'Rourke's weakness and the (I think) poor showing of Buttigieg, someone has to take on the non-Biden, white Obama roll. And I feel like Bennet did that well. Additionally, his calls for a complete assault-weapon buyback is something unique that makes him stand out from the crowd.

4. Yang — While Yang obviously didn't get a ton of time to speak, I think that the uniqueness of his platform is enough to rank him as having an OK debate. Sure, a bunch of political junkies didn't see anything special tonight, but to the general people who are hearing about him for the first time, he made himself an interesting figure that might be worth looking up after the event has ended.

5.Sanders — If there was going to be a performance that I saw going exactly as expected, it would be Sanders's. He did no better and no worse than you would have thought. Perhaps this is my own fault for following him so closely in 2016, but I would expect that, since most people already know who he is, his backing will remain about the same. The only thing that would throw a wrench into this would be the other candidate's performances. Their own showings may feed or detract from how well Sanders is doing, but in a vacuum I would say that he sits right in the middle on performance overall.

6. Buttigieg — I really don't understand why people thought Buttigieg had a strong night tonight. I thought he did decent, but decent doesn't cut it when there is nothing unique you can point to about the night. On the other hand, I don't think he did poorly overall, and the standout weaknesses that were brought up will probably be overshadowed by the performances of the other major candidates.

7. Hickenlooper — I feel like coming out of the debate, the only thing I have learned about Hickenlooper's views is that Socialism = Bad. However, that did give him something of a unique perspective on the stage. I'm sure there are enough people like him that will see him calling out Socialism for whatever reason that he might just do better. However, unlike bottom barrel candidates like Bennet and Yang, Socialism bad doesn't do enough on its own to sustain a base of support.

8. Williamson — As others have said, with a candidate this low to the floor, there isn't really anywhere to go but up. I don't think Williamson did great, and I think that all of her points were done better by other members on the stage, but I don't see how a candidate polling less then a tenth of a percent can really take the bottom spot.

9. Swalwell — It's hard to call someone a loser when they really didn't have any support to begin with (just like with Williamson). However, the only thing I can really remember about Swalwell was that he was wearing an orange tie. Unless something happens between now and the next debate, I see him as being one of the first eliminated during tiebreakers.

10. Biden — As I mentioned when I wrote about Harris, she took what Biden needed to do and did it herself. Was Biden's performance the worst? No. In a debate on equal footing, I would say that Biden did just fine. However, when you are the frontrunner, doing just fine really isn't good enough. Even if every single primary voter was forced to watch and pay attention to the debate, I wouldn't expect him to fall off the map, but I would expect him to be in a somewhat middling position based on his performance. Plus, don't ignore the effect that news coverage can have on perceptions. Biden had some tough moments and those are the moments you will see running under all of the coverage for the next few days.

[NyIndy]

Frankly, in my opinion, I think that Andrew Yang had a bad debate. he seemed nervous and did not articulate his ideas enough, which are far and away his strong suit. But it's not the end of the world. Looks like he's gonna be on stage at least through the 4th debate. So he'll have plenty more time.

[Alben Barkley]

Biden did worst relative to expectations but saying he did worst period is dumb. He at least got a lot of applause whenever he was able to tie himself back to Obama -- that's still a powerful selling point for him.

The clear worst overall were Swalwell, Williamson, and Yang, and you could make a case for any of them. I voted Swalwell because a performance that bad for any supposed professional politician is simply inexcusable. Williamson and Yang, however, failed to prove they could be serious candidates which means they are pretty much doomed now because this was their one real shot to do that. Yang fumbling on his own UBI signature issue was just pathetic, and Williamson... LOL, I still have no idea what the hell she was talking about, but I want whatever she was on.

[Sir Mohamed]

Sanders. He didn't introduce something new and made the impression of being an old, angry man. Biden did actually better than I antipcipated, but not that well either.

[Tartarus Sauce]

Yang, in the sense that his near invisible status at the debate completely deflates the "meme power" surrounding his campaign, which was all he really had going for him. He wasn't polling well at all, but I think more people would have expected him to have had one of the best chances to move up the tiers due to his unique policy points and all he needed was a breakout moment. Instead, he was a complete non-factor that blended into the background. Swalwell and Williamson somehow managed to be more prominent than him.

Both Sanders and Biden had more to lose and underperformed, and Biden in particular did so at the expense of another major contender getting their breakout moment, but Yang won't get a second chance and he had an actual opportunity to make a serious play for relevancy.

[eric82oslo]

Yang, in the sense that his near invisible status at the debate completely deflates the "meme power" surrounding his campaign, which was all he really had going for him. He wasn't polling well at all, but I think more people would have expected him to have had one of the best chances to move up the tiers due to his unique policy points and all he needed was a breakout moment. Instead, he was a complete non-factor that blended into the background. Swalwell and Williamson somehow managed to be more prominent than him.

Both Sanders and Biden had more to lose and underperformed, and Biden in particular did so at the expense of another major contender getting their breakout moment, but Yang won't get a second chance and he had an actual opportunity to make a serious play for relevancy.

He will get a second chance in July, and almost certainly, unless something radical happens, a 3rd and 4th chance in September and October since he's already at the required 130,000 donors.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Williamson

[izixs]

I voted Hickenlooper, but there were a couple real stinker performances here. Joey B probably second worst, but both bad performances come from a similar source: Being out of touch and stuck in (at the latest) the 90s mentality. Williamson is clearly a nut, but some people like insane people so that probably helps her with them (probably at Gabbard's expense?). Yang seemed very single issue obsessed (similar to Inslee on night 1 I guess?) and once it was clear that's all he was going to talk about it felt like the moderators were kind of ok with ignoring him. Swalwell did come off super awkward and like a jerk, but I'd say he at least made an impression and will, at the very least, not lose much of his 1%ish support and might even get some support for his aggression, so I'd hardly say he did terrible at all. Might not be a style most like or agree with, but it works for people. Gillibrand... had opportunity, and even commanded the floor a couple times, but I can't remember much of what she touched on. But at least she didn't make me angry at her like Delaney who used similar interruption tactics.

[MillennialModerate]

Williamson by a country mile

I also thought Gillibrand came off as desperate for attention

[PRESIDENT STANTON]

They all did! What killed them, was that moment when all on the stage raised there hand in support of the proposition that there should be free healthcare for illegal migrants! There are reasons why, 1. The optics, for most voters it will be viewed by many as being unfair that those who are not part of the system, are getting freebies! 2. There has been no costing of how much such a scheme might cost. 3. The idea will be viewed as pie in the sky, socialistic, completely unrealistic & purely political! Independent voters will not like it! I can imagine the Trump’s campaign are gonna construct a very damaging ad, attacking Democrats for supporting the idea! It’s mind blowing that Democrats continue there leftward pivot, knowing the potential blow-back! Both Hickenlooper and Buttigieg came across as more balanced. Harris took advantage of Biden’s record, and so she may have helped her campaign, but to what end! Her support within the African American community is iffy at best! Trump is gonna use the economic message to try & appeal to blacks! My take is that Trump won the debate!

[SInNYC]

Counting out Williamson, Biden did the worst. He looked old and slow and didnt really answer anything, nor did he adequately address the bombs thrown his way. It was doubly bad since the candidate who did the best (Harris) is competing for a good chunk of Biden's base (establishment blacks).

[terp40hitch]

I don’t feel it was Yangs fault for a bad debate

He got like two minutes to speak, he didn’t want to be a dick so he wouldn’t try and yell over other speakers and every time he spoke the moderators tried to cut him off

[GoTfan]

I voted Hickenlooper, but there were a couple real stinker performances here. Joey B probably second worst, but both bad performances come from a similar source: Being out of touch and stuck in (at the latest) the 90s mentality. Williamson is clearly a nut, but some people like insane people so that probably helps her with them (probably at Gabbard's expense?). Yang seemed very single issue obsessed (similar to Inslee on night 1 I guess?) and once it was clear that's all he was going to talk about it felt like the moderators were kind of ok with ignoring him. Swalwell did come off super awkward and like a jerk, but I'd say he at least made an impression and will, at the very least, not lose much of his 1%ish support and might even get some support for his aggression, so I'd hardly say he did terrible at all. Might not be a style most like or agree with, but it works for people. Gillibrand... had opportunity, and even commanded the floor a couple times, but I can't remember much of what she touched on. But at least she didn't make me angry at her like Delaney who used similar interruption tactics.

I'm not sure that being single issue is a problem for Yang and Inslee.

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

Even though she obviously had nothing to lose, Williamson's performance was so bad it was almost surreal.

As for everyone else, I guess Gillibrand didn't do too well.

[charlottegaze]

I'm gonna say Hickenlooper, not that he stood a chance in the first place. Not only did he sound like a fool placing himself in contrast with Sanders' socialized healthcare, but he managed to extend his centrism further to ICE of all damn things. I don't know how you can make your policies more uninspiring than that.

But obviously, the one who's gonna suffer most because of it is Biden, as he's ahead in the polls and didn't look anything like that was the case on stage. Primary voters have long considered Harris one of the most viable options for Democratic nominee, and how she went off on him definitely reaffirms that.

[Stranger in a strange land]

I like Yang, but I feel he should really drop out and run for congress: he apparently lives in NY-12 and would be a huge improvement over Carolyn Maloney

[jaichind]

Bernie and Biden were bad and considering they had the most to lose they did the worst, but I'd give a special mention to Williamson as she was a disaster with no plans but was polling at 0 percent anyways

This is sort of how I feel.