It’s Debate Time….Part Two!

Alright! If you’re following my blog, or any kind of news source, you’ll know that the second night of the Democratic Debates took place last night in Miami, Florida. The other 10 candidates participating in this debate took the stage at 9pm eastern to discuss immigration, health care, the economy, and foreign policy. Here is a list of the participating candidates:

• Marianne Williamson
• John Hickenlooper
• Andrew Yang
• Pete Buttigieg
• Joe Biden
• Bernie Sanders
• Kamala Harris
• Kirsten Gillibrand
• Michael Bennet
• Eric Swalwell

The candidate who had the most speaking time was Joe Biden, with a total of 13.6 minutes. You can see the full list of speaking length per candidate here. This was not so surprising because Biden has been the front runner in the race for the democratic nomination. The second longest speaking time went to Kamala Harris with a time. This allocation of time was due to Harris challenging Biden on his previous comments on how he crosses the aisle to pass bills with segregationist congressmen.

Only one candidate ventured to speak Spanish last night, and it was Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The Mayor actually knows quite a few languages, and he took his opportunity to pander to the crowd in Miami, Florida just as his fellow candidates did the night before.

Let’s Talk About Health Care

Overall, the night was significantly more heated than the first round of debates. There was more emotion, and many more interruptions from multiple candidates. A main topic of discussion was health care, and whether to offer universal health care right off the bat, to slowly introduce it and not force people off of their private insurance, and some who want to return to the same workings of the Affordable Care Act. The candidates were asked a sweeping question: By a show of hands, who here would abandon your private insurance and take on a federally offered option. The two candidates who raised their hands were Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris (who has since went back on that statement I heard? Interesting). From the previous night, the only people to raise their hands for this question were Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio.

These debates were just the first of more to come within the party before the primaries. The next debate will be July 30 and 31, with the same requirement listed for this debate. After that, the next step is in September where the cut off to make it onto the stage will be significantly higher. Candidates will need at least 2 percent support in four polls and 130,000 unique donors (with at least 400 donors each in 20 states) to qualify.

The road is long, but it’s only going to get more interesting as more topics are discussed and we gain a better understanding of who these candidates are.

If you wanted to catch some highlights of the debate, you can find them here!

Want a recap of night one? You can read my take here.