Reid J. Epstein

The union, National Nurses United, fervently supported Sanders’ last bid for the White House in 2016, and its members have been significant players in Democratic politics since then, showing up in red T-shirts to support Sanders’ progressive allies in intraparty battles. They have also canvassed neighborhoods in swing congressional districts, urging voters to get behind “Medicare for all,” Sanders’ plan for a nationalized health insurance system.

“We know what we have done and what it takes to bring about fundamental change, and it’s massive organizing and a mass movement,” said Jean Ross, a co-president of the union. “Of all the candidates, Bernie is the one who understands that.”

The union plans to formally endorse Sanders on Friday at a news conference in Oakland, California.

After being so tied to Sanders in 2016, the nurses’ union was unlikely to endorse anyone else in the 2020 race. Sanders, of Vermont, was the only candidate to sit for an in-person interview with the union to seek its endorsement; Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called in on a video chat and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, sent a 3-minute video. Union officials said they had invited former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris of California to interview but each declined to do so.

Warren, another leading candidate for the nomination and Sanders’ top progressive rival, has also laid out a sweeping plan for single-payer health insurance, but the union stuck with the original architect of Medicare for all.

“We enjoyed the difficulty this time around because last time the field was so barren” aside from Sanders, Ross said.

The endorsement also brings Sanders the support of the union’s super PAC, a thorny issue given that Sanders, like most of the Democrats seeking the party’s 2020 nomination, has disavowed support from super PACs.

In 2016 the union’s super PAC spent $5 million backing Sanders in the primary contest against Hillary Clinton, a relative pittance in the world of super PACs (the one supporting Jeb Bush blew through $87 million). Still, it spent more money backing Sanders than was spent by any other super PAC on behalf of Clinton or other Democrats in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.

The union’s super PAC “will be activated” on behalf of Sanders, said Bonnie Castillo, the union’s executive director. But she said union members and the super PAC would not attack Sanders’ rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“We’re not going negative,” she said. “We are a very positive force. It’s a reflection of who we are as a profession. We are healers.”

When talking to voters, Sanders often rails against the influence of money in politics, vowing to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010 that opened the super PAC era in American politics. Since Biden dropped his resistance last month to receiving the support of such groups, Sanders has become more pointed.

“I don’t need a super PAC,” he said during a town hall-style event last month in Marshalltown, Iowa, in response to a question from the audience about Biden. “I am not going to be controlled by a handful of wealthy people. I will be controlled by the working people of this country.”

This weekend, he continued the theme, saying, “We don’t have a super PAC,” at a rally in Coralville, Iowa.

But Sanders did not disavow support from the nurses’ union’s super PAC in 2016, even as he pointed out that he did not have a super PAC of his own. On Monday, Sanders thanked the nurses’ union for its support but did not address its super PAC.

“What the nurses understand is that the current health care system is not only dysfunctional but extraordinarily cruel,” Sanders said in a statement relayed by his campaign. “Together we are finally going to do what should have been done decades ago and make sure that every man, woman and child in this country has quality health care as a human right.”

Few major labor unions, typically significant players in Democratic Party politics, have endorsed candidates in the 2020 presidential contest. Biden kicked off his campaign in a Teamsters hall with the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters. The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America backed Sanders in August. The National Union of Healthcare Workers endorsed both Sanders and Warren in September.

National Nurses United was born out of a 2009 merger of three smaller unions. The organization, with about 155,000 members, is a staunch proponent of liberal politics and movement-building in the Sanders mold. The union’s nurses were active in providing health care to protesters at the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan in 2011, and the organization has lobbied forcefully for single-payer health care and a financial transaction tax.

Deborah Burger, a union co-president, said if Sanders did not win the primary the union was committed to fighting for whoever wins the party’s nomination against President Donald Trump.

“We have made a commitment to endorse Bernie Sanders,” she said. “But in the end we have made a commitment to our communities that we live in that we will do whatever it takes to defeat Donald Trump.”

This article originally appeared in

Big Nurses Union Backs Bernie Sanders and His Push for 'Medicare for All'

WASHINGTON — The country’s largest nurses’ union will endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders for president this week, a significant boost to his campaign from a major ally in the fight for his signature health care proposal.

Hickenlooper, who is mired at the bottom of public polling of the presidential race, hopped into Sen. Michael Bennet’s car on Friday night in this Northern Iowa town to discuss his impending decision, said Democrats familiar with the discussion, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential talks.

The two drove around Clear Lake for about 20 minutes ahead of the Wing Ding dinner, a Democratic fundraiser that drew 21 presidential candidates. Aides and advisers to the two men, who have been both allies and rivals over their careers in Colorado politics, declined to reveal what was discussed.

Officials who have been in discussions with the Hickenlooper campaign said Tuesday that the former two-term governor is giving serious consideration to switching to the Senate race but stressed that a final decision has not yet been made. Short of a massive change in political momentum, Hickenlooper is certain to fail to qualify for the next round of presidential debates in September, an additional blow to a campaign struggling to attract attention and financial contributions.

A spokesman for Hickenlooper, Peter Cunningham, declined to comment on the former governor’s plans or what was discussed during his Friday night drive with Bennet, who is also running for president. A Bennet aide also declined to comment on their discussion.

Recent days have brought unsubtle messages that high-ranking Democratic officials in Colorado and Washington believe Hickenlooper is in the wrong race.

The Denver Post on Sunday published polling done on behalf of “a national Democratic group involved in Senate races” that showed Hickenlooper holding a 51-point lead over two other Democrats in the state’s 2020 Senate race.

On Monday, the 314 Action Fund, a super PAC that backs candidates who are scientists, announced a “Draft Hick for Senate” campaign along with a poll it commissioned showing Hickenlooper leading Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican seeking reelection, by 13 percentage points in a head-to-head matchup.

Colorado is key to Democratic hopes of retaking a Senate majority in the 2020 election. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, has spent months trying to recruit Hickenlooper to enter the contest to face Gardner. Hickenlooper would join a Democratic primary that already has 11 declared candidates, including Mike Johnston, a former state senator who placed third in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor; Andrew Romanoff, a former Colorado House speaker; John Walsh, a former U.S. attorney for Colorado; and Dan Baer, a former Obama administration official.

Hickenlooper has pooh-poohed his interest in running for the Senate. In February he told reporters in Iowa that he is “not cut out to be a senator.”

Gardner is seeking a second term in office but faces headwinds in a state where President Donald Trump is highly unpopular. In 2016 Trump lost Colorado to Hillary Clinton by five points. A July poll of likely Colorado voters from a Republican-aligned firm found Trump with a 39% approval rating in the state and concluded he trails a generic Democratic general election opponent by 12 percentage points.

Democrats must win a net of three Republican-held Senate seats and win the White House to take control of the Senate.

Hickenlooper in recent weeks has seen an exodus of senior campaign aides, who advised him in the spring to end his presidential bid if his fundraising and polling status did not improve by the end of July. He qualified and participated in the first two televised debates in June and July, but his performances were not memorable and there has been little improvement in his fundraising, according to people familiar with his campaign’s finances.

During the three-month fundraising period that ended June 30, Hickenlooper raised $1.1 million and spent $1.7 million, an unsustainable pattern for a candidate who has not caught fire with voters. He had $800,000 in his campaign account at the end of June, according to his Federal Election Commission report.

Johnston and Baer each raised more campaign funds for their Senate campaigns in the second quarter than Hickenlooper did for his presidential bid.

Yet when he appeared before Democratic activists in Clear Lake Friday night, Hickenlooper appeared unbowed. Amid the sounds of people chattering and eating their baked beans and pulled pork, he said his case for the presidency relies on his stature as a chief executive untarred by Washington politics.

“My plan to beat Donald Trump is to start by looking at our history,” Hickenlooper said. “No sitting senator has ever beaten an incumbent president. Go backwards with Clinton to Reagan to Carter to Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson, all former governors who defeated incumbent presidents. Just want to make that clear — governors are closer to the people.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/us/politics/john-hickenlooper-2020-senate.html" id="d346f9f1-b483-305a-a69c-6b3e71c98c84">The New York Times</a>.

Hickenlooper Mulling Ending Presidential Bid to Run for Senate

CLEAR LAKE, Iowa — Former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado is in discussions about ending his presidential bid and entering the race for his state’s Republican-held Senate seat, potentially giving Democrats a strong candidate in a race they must win to have hopes of retaking the chamber in 2021, according to four Democrats familiar with his thinking.

“I have it on the TV right now,” Reza Darvishian, a State Department security engineer, told Helmer on the porch of his home. “I’m sick of listening to all of this stuff.”

That is not what the Republican incumbent in the race, Tim Hugo, says he is hearing from his constituents. Gun violence is of little concern to voters, Hugo said. Instead they want to talk about the same issues that have animated suburban voters for the generation he’s been in office.

“I ask people, ‘How can I help?’” Hugo said. “The answers that come back are transportation, schools, taxes and even illegal immigration.”

The mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, last weekend have rebooted the national discussion over gun violence and ignited a bitter fight between Democrats and President Donald Trump over whether his divisive rhetoric encouraged the violence. Now Virginia’s off-year elections in November loom as the first political battlefield on the issue. Republicans hold only one-vote majorities in both the House and Senate. Democrats are aiming to capture both chambers and pass new gun control legislation next year.

With little expectation that Republicans who control the Senate and the White House will enact significant measures on firearms, the Virginia elections will help measure the potency of the issue with voters after a series of mass shootings that has outraged many Americans. And it will match the resources of the movement’s biggest supporter, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, against the National Rifle Association, the long-dominant Virginia-based gun rights organization that faces internal turmoil and a steady loss of influence.

The 2018 midterms marked the first time the NRA was outspent by gun control groups in a national campaign.

The issue is already highly charged in Virginia, which had its own mass shooting in May, when 12 people were killed in a Virginia Beach municipal building. The massacre prompted the Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, to call a special session in July and ask lawmakers to consider a package of eight gun control proposals, including banning assault-style weapons and implementing universal background checks.

Using their razor-thin majority, Republicans ended the session after 90 minutes and referred the gun control questions to a state crime commission, which it asked to present a report on the issue a week after Election Day.

“We’re much better off in a less political atmosphere to come back after the election and consider a comprehensive solution,” said Kirk Cox, speaker of the state House of Delegates.

Now Cox and Hugo are the top targets for Democrats and gun control proponents. Both represent suburban districts long in Republican control where voters have rejected the party in the Trump era.

“This will be the first thing on the docket,” said former Gov. Terry McAuliffe. “People are fired up. People are sick and tired of saying, ‘My thoughts and prayers are with you,’ and they want action.”

The Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, the political arm of Bloomberg’s gun control organization, said this week that it would invest at least $2.5 million in Virginia before Election Day — more than it spent in either of the last two legislative elections there. The group polled 14 legislative districts this week to determine how it will allocate its funds.

“Virginia is a bellwether state and we are going to be there,” said John Feinblatt, Everytown’s president. “There is no doubt this is a test. This is the next theater for what’s going to happen everywhere in 2020.”

With its odd-year elections, Virginia has a long record of serving as a leading indicator for national contests the following year. The state’s voters in 2009 were the first to reject Democrats in the Obama era, foreshadowing the rise of the Tea Party, and did the same to Republicans in 2017 after Trump’s election. That year, Democrats swept out a generation of long-tenured suburban Republican lawmakers while coming within a coin flip in a tied race of winning control of the state’s House of Delegates for the first time since 1999.

Virginia remains a complex state demographically and culturally, with wide swaths of rural areas where Confederate flags are common and belief in gun rights sacrosanct. But the current gun control debate comes as the state has nearly completed a Republican-to-Democratic transition in statewide elections, as urban and suburban voters have swung hard away from Republicans during the last decade.

The stakes in Virginia extend beyond gun politics. Northam is eager to write a legacy beyond his connection to disputed blackface photos in his medical school yearbook that emerged in February; some Virginia Democrats believe he would jump at the chance to sign a slate of progressive legislation in a state long been known for its permissive gun laws.

While Republicans hope to lower the temperature on gun politics, Democrats are trying to keep it high. Helmer’s pitch to voters begins with his Army service in Afghanistan and Iraq and pivots directly to a call for new gun restrictions. Cox’s Democratic challenger in the suburbs south of Richmond, Sheila Bynum-Coleman, tells voters of how her teenage daughter survived being shot outside a party in 2016.

“People want to see something done now,” she said in an interview Wednesday. “That is the No. 1 thing that we are hearing out in the community, especially after what has happened this weekend, is that we want to see something done now.”

Virginia Democrats’ optimism about seizing control in Richmond lies in the broader electoral trends in suburbs here and across the country. Mitt Romney won the Centreville district by 4 percentage points in 2012. Four years later, Hillary Clinton carried it by 10 points. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia won it by 18 points in his 2018 contest.

In 2017, Hugo won a ninth term as a delegate, but only by 106 votes.

Helmer has built his campaign around his identity as an Army veteran and his support for the robust suite of gun control measures Northam proposed.

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was shot and critically wounded in 2011, has endorsed Helmer and appeared with him at a March fundraiser. Giffords endorsed Bynum-Coleman after the truncated special session in July.

“In the lulls between these terrible national events, it’ll be the second or third thing people bring up to you,’’ Helmer said as he drove from his campaign headquarters to a Centreville neighborhood of four-and five-bedroom houses. “But increasingly, it’s moved up.”

He said that even the Trump voters he had encountered told him the time had come to enact robust gun control measures.

“Too many people that shouldn’t have guns have them and they should be controlled,” said Marie Mills, an 85-year-old retiree from Tennessee who moved to Virginia to live with her adult son.

Sophia Bohle, a 50-year-old real estate agent whose teenage son, Stratis, volunteers for Hugo, said there should be new gun restrictions at both the state and federal level.

“I think it should be a privilege to have a gun, not a right,” she said.

Both women, who described themselves as Trump-supporting independents, said they’d consider voting for Helmer to reduce gun violence.

As in other states, the NRA is closely aligned with Virginia’s Republican officials. During the special session, the NRA’s political team worked from the speaker’s conference room down the hall from Cox’s office. Cox said the space is a public meeting room open to anyone who needs to use it.

“Kirk Cox did not talk to the NRA before the special session,” Cox said, using the third person. “There are constant meetings in all of those rooms.”

Like Cox and Hugo, Chris Kopacki, the NRA’s Virginia state director, contended that gun issues are low on voters’ list of priorities. He added that there was little room for compromise to be had with Democrats seeking to implement new gun restrictions. Kopacki said there are “hundreds of thousands” of NRA members and supporters in the state who are prepared to organize to back Republicans in November and oppose gun control measures in Richmond.

“Compromise is common on many legislative issues, but when it comes to gun rights, Gov. Northam and his allies are only interested in positions that restrict the rights of law-abiding Virginians and not in seeking real solutions to violence,” Kopacki said.

Other Republicans expressed more concern and suggested the party would be wise to demonstrate a willingness to work with Democrats to show they are doing something about gun violence.

“No Republican is going blind into this election,” said Tucker Martin, who was an aide to Virginia’s last Republican governor, Bob McDonnell. “They know exactly how challenging it is and they won’t be surprised by it.”

Hugo said he’s supportive of expanding Virginia’s “red-flag” laws but declined to say whether the legislature should consider universal background checks. John Fredericks, who was chairman of Trump’s Virginia campaign in 2016, on Tuesday warned Republicans of electoral calamity in November if they do not first act on gun control measures.

Big losses this November, Fredericks said on his conservative talk radio program, would allow the Democrats to not only enact a sweeping liberal agenda on gun control, health care and other issues but also give the party control of the next redistricting process, potentially flipping three congressional seats and locking Republicans out of majorities in Richmond for a decade.

“Here’s my message to Republicans: If you don’t do something, you’re going to get annihilated in the suburbs in 2019,” Fredericks said. “And that’s the end of Republicans in Virginia for a generation.”-

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/us/politics/virginia-gun-control-mass-shootings.html" id="570b820c-c9d6-3f34-a2b0-d40449b9de6a">The New York Times</a>.

Will Shootings Sway 2020 Voters? Look First to Virginia Races

CENTREVILLE, Va. — At door after door, house after house, Dan Helmer, a Democrat running for the Virginia House of Delegates, found voters of both parties telling him one thing as he canvassed for support Tuesday night: Do something about the mass shootings.

The two debates, which will air on CNN from 8 p.m. until roughly 10:30 p.m. each night, are expected to be more contentious than the first set of debates in Miami last month, when Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro won plaudits and jumps in fundraising with effective attacks against onstage opponents.

Short of a breakout moment that turbocharges their grassroots fundraising and public polling, half the field is in danger of missing the Democratic National Committee’s qualifying threshold for the next round of debates, scheduled for September.

Officials involved in the campaigns and some of the candidates themselves have foreshadowed testier exchanges this week, as 10 candidates take the stage each night knowing they are fighting for their political lives.

And indeed the debate lineups, chosen during a game show-style live draw on CNN, will provide ample opportunity for rhetorical fireworks.

The Lineups

Tuesday’s debate will place the race’s two liberal front-runners, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, together at center stage.

Wednesday’s debate will feature former Vice President Joe Biden, under attack for his past positions on race-related issues, standing between the two leading black candidates: Harris and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey. Biden has spent the past month clashing with both.

The Format

The debates will begin with 60-second opening statements, followed by 60-second responses to questions posed by CNN’s moderators: Dana Bash, Don Lemon and Jake Tapper.

CNN will not ask the candidates “show of hands” questions. And representatives from the network have told the campaigns they will penalize any candidate who “consistently interrupts” by reducing the amount of time that candidate has to speak.

The candidates will appear at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit, a venue that hosted the infamous 2016 Republican presidential primary debate in which Donald Trump defended the size of his manhood after Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida attacked it.

The Dynamics

On the first night, CNN’s moderators will undoubtedly seek to draw distinctions between Sanders and Warren. Others onstage will also seek to contrast themselves with the race’s leading progressives. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has, in recent interviews, foreshadowed a resistance to the free college and “Medicare for All” proposals pushed by Sanders. Former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland oppose socialism and have attacked Sanders, a democratic socialist, without much success. Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, who did not qualify for the first debate in June, has said since then that he would not support extending federal health care benefits to immigrants in the country illegally, separating himself from most of the presidential field.

More prospective sources of tension might include a battle between Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas — a conflict O’Rourke’s allies have foreshadowed in recent days. Klobuchar, meanwhile, has barely hid her disdain for Buttigieg and O’Rourke, two men who are younger and less accomplished than her but have received far more attention in the race. And Marianne Williamson, a self-help author, remains a wild card.

While all 10 candidates debating Tuesday are white, Wednesday’s debate will feature five people of color, including Harris and Booker, who have each placed their bets on wresting the support of black voters away from Biden.

There’s little doubt Biden’s record on race will be a focus. Harris’ broadside during the first debate against Biden’s decades-old position on mandatory busing to integrate public schools energized her campaign, while Booker last week hit Biden for writing the 1994 crime bill, previewing a line of attack.

Biden’s advisers have said he will be more prepared to fight back Wednesday than he had been in Miami. His aides preemptively criticized Booker last week, highlighting his tenure as the mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

On the stage’s edge, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to stress his signature issue, climate change, while Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York may return to a vague attack she launched last week in Iowa, when she accused unnamed presidential rivals of not wanting to see women working “outside the home.”

The Stakes

For candidates like Inslee and Gillibrand, the stakes this week are enormous. Their fundraising pace is well behind what is necessary to reach 130,000 donors by September, which candidates must amass to qualify for the next round of debates.

Candidates must also receive at least 2% support in at least four qualifying polls to participate in the debates, scheduled for Sept. 12-13 in Houston. If 10 or fewer candidates qualify, the debate will take place on only one night.

Seven candidates have already locked down their spots: Biden, Warren, Sanders, Harris, Buttigieg, O’Rourke and, as of Monday, Booker.

Castro and Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur, have enough donors to qualify but need one more qualifying poll each. Klobuchar has crossed the polling threshold and is on pace to reach the donor threshold, according to her campaign, which said Monday that she had nearly 120,000 donors and was averaging 1,000 new donors a day.

But no other candidate has met either benchmark for the September debate, and none of them appear particularly close. Short of a breakout moment that translates into a surge of support over the next month, this week will be the last time they appear in a nationally televised debate for this race.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/us/politics/democratic-debate-schedule-lineup.html" id="bc70b865-53dd-33ee-a8ee-f985c6e26fe6">The New York Times</a>.

A High-Stakes Debate for Candidates on the Edge

When 20 Democratic presidential candidates gather for the second round of debates Tuesday and Wednesday, about half of them will do so with the understanding that it will probably be their last time debating on the national stage this election cycle.

WASHINGTON — There are fierce rivalries, long-tangled histories, deeply personal grudges — and in the end, only one winner can hold the rose.

No, this isn’t “The Bachelor.” But the Democratic presidential candidates are taking part in the latest installment of a storied tradition of American politics: They are aiming to outwit, outplay and outlast a field of rivals in a campaign so far defined partly by its theatrics and big moments.

From the heavily rehearsed jabs, gimmicks and one-liners at the June debates to the elaborately staged “live drawing” for the July debate lineups that aired Thursday night on CNN, it’s starting to look like Democrats have been drawn into the reality TV genre that President Donald Trump, who first entered most homes as a character on “The Apprentice,” started spreading in American politics.

The Democratic National Committee has all but encouraged candidates to strive for performative breakout moments as a way to attract more donors, which are needed to qualify for the party’s televised debates.

The result is a field of candidates in search of did-you-see-that clips to dominate successive news cycles, something to keep them in the churn of cable and social media content that drives attention, small-dollar contributions and, they hope, a rise in the polls.

“It has become more and more like a game show,” said Brett O’Donnell, a Republican strategist who coached John McCain and Mitt Romney, both presidential nominees, in their debates.

The paradox: In a contest for the hearts, minds and wallets of a Democratic electorate that loathes Trump, candidates aiming to replace him are forced to choose between adopting his modern media tactics or being left behind as others do.

“I’m not going to have this huge viral moment,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota lamented last weekend in the backroom of a dusty union hall in Waterloo, Iowa — where the wall behind her was emblazoned with the phrase, “We celebrate the past.” “I hope I do, but I’m not going to do something crazy just to have it.”

On Thursday, the campaign reality show added a new twist: a game show episode.

CNN, which is set to air the second set of debates later this month, devoted an hour of prime time to a special called “THE DRAW.” It took 40 minutes to draw 20 names out of three different boxes and divide them into two debating groups.

All afternoon, the news network had one of its familiar countdown clocks on the screen, ticking down the seconds until “THE DRAW.” At the appointed hour, viewers watched three of the network’s esteemed anchors escape from behind their desks to play the role of Wink Martindale and choose the candidates’ names out of boxes. Overhead cameras showed the boxes’ interiors to ensure no funny business was at play.

It was manufactured excitement that came with its own pre- and postgame shows. The drama was slightly less attractive for the candidates, whose fates may depend on which stage they were placed.

“I’ll be watching some paint dry here at the state Capitol,” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington said in a Thursday afternoon phone call from Olympia. “I find that more intriguing.”

If there was any doubt about the value of viral moments in the 2020 campaign, the first set of debates in June eliminated them. Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro turbocharged their lackluster fundraising efforts by launching rhetorical torpedoes at unsuspecting targets.

Harris raised nearly $4 million in the week after she clocked former Vice President Joe Biden for his past opposition to busing and his warm remarks about segregationist senators. Castro in the six months before the debate had attracted 70,000 donors. In the four weeks since he won a verbal sparring match over immigration against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, he’s had 60,000 more — enough to qualify for the September debate if he also meets the DNC’s polling threshold.

It was the conflict that Harris and Castro generated, more than the policies they were promoting, that produced their memorable moments in the Miami debates.

“They’re looking for the captain of the team, to learn who is the best to lead the team into victory,” O’Donnell said of Democratic voters. “They are like gladiator events. People are looking for who is their champion.”

CNN’s draw produced a cliffhanger for the network to hype: A Biden-Harris rematch highlighting the second debate night, to follow a showdown between Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on night one.

The 10-candidate debates, said Seth Grossman, who produced reality series including “Hollywood Hillbillies” and “Intervention,” are like opening episodes, when contestants are scrapping to not be thrown off the island by appearing boring.

Candidates including Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Rep. Eric Swalwell of California tried interrupting their way to debate moments in June, but they were brushed aside. Swalwell ended his campaign soon afterward.

“What makes somebody good at conflict is narcissism. As soon as you have a healthy ability to empathize with another person’s point of view, you’re less likely to verbally insult that person,” Grossman said. “Audiences get off on watching narcissists go head to head.”

The characters who do the best on reality shows often wind up being the ones audiences dislike the most.

“People who are truly unhinged are the best reality stars you can find,” said Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, who was a producer for “The Bachelor.” “People who don’t care about haters, don’t care about trolls and just say, ‘I’m going to tell it like it is.’”

Shapiro had little advice for the Democrats preparing for the next round of debates.

“I’m as terrified and confused as everybody else as far as what would work at this point,” she said.

Karen Dunn, a Washington lawyer who helped former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepare for their debates, said the goal of debates has always been to create a lasting moment borne out of interpersonal conflict.

And in a primary to determine who will face Trump next year, how candidates punch and counterpunch is as relevant to voters as any position they may hold.

“One of the salient questions in this election is who is going to be able to go toe to toe with the president and not back down,” Dunn said. “Voters could be looking for a calm, steady presence, but that is not going to distinguish you in a debate.”

Veteran Democrats — especially those partial to Biden — are not thrilled that their party’s highest-profile events have evolved into a televised battle royale. With so many campaigns on political life support, Biden is the biggest target for struggling candidates looking to replicate Harris’ tactics from the first debate.

Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and agriculture secretary, hosted Biden for a campaign event Monday at his home in Waukee, Iowa. But Vilsack refused to entertain questions about how Biden performed in the first debate and whether he needs to do better in the second.

“To me it’s, ‘Have you hired and fired? Have you managed? Do you understand how to get things done?’” Vilsack said. “I mean, at the end of the day, that’s what this is all about, getting things done, not necessarily debating.”

There is little doubt more of the Democratic candidates — especially those outside the race’s top tier — will launch a series of in-your-face attacks in search of a viral moment.

They’ve had little luck winning attention so far. Just ask former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland and former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, who have each tried elbowing their way into a fight over socialism with Sanders, a front-runner campaigning on his brand of democratic socialism.

Aside from snarky tweets, Sanders hasn’t responded. When they gather in Detroit later this month, Delaney and Hickenlooper will be sharing the stage with Sanders and will have the opportunity to try again.

Klobuchar predicted that the second round of debates would feature more conflict than the first.

“I think that there’s just going to be more and more definition of contrast on issues,” she said.

Asked if she was telegraphing a more assertive approach that would inject her into the post-debate news cycles, Klobuchar demurred.

“I’m not predicting what I’m going to do,” she replied. “That would be really dumb debate strategy.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/us/politics/next-democratic-debates.html" id="243f5863-5c7d-3311-ac6f-22a9051e2743">The New York Times</a>.

Candidates Are Pushed to Go Viral, or Risk Being Left Behind

(Political Memo)

Why the Democratic Debates Are Starting to Feel Like a Reality Show

No, this isn’t “The Bachelor.” But the Democratic presidential candidates are taking part in the latest installment of a storied tradition of American politics: They are aiming to outwit, outplay and outlast a field of rivals in a campaign so far defined mostly by its theatrics and big moments.

From the heavily rehearsed jabs, gimmicks and one-liners at the June debates to the elaborately staged “live drawing” for the July debate lineups that aired Thursday night on CNN, it’s clear that Democrats have been drawn into the reality TV genre that President Donald Trump, who first entered most homes as a character on “The Apprentice,” started spreading in American politics.

If there was any doubt about the central nature of viral moments in the 2020 campaign, the first set of debates in June eliminated them. Sen. Kamala Harris of California and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro turbocharged their lackluster fundraising efforts by launching rhetorical torpedoes at unsuspecting targets.

“What makes somebody good at conflict is narcissism. As soon as you have a healthy ability to emphasize with another person’s point of view, you’re less likely to verbally insult that person,” Grossman said. “Audiences get off on watching narcissists go head to head.”

After Harris’ criticism of Biden’s record on race issues dominated the storyline following the first Democratic presidential debate last month, the two will square off again later this month in Detroit when candidates gather for the second set of debates.

In a television spectacle that CNN is unlikely to nominate for upcoming awards shows, the cable network spent 40 minutes dividing the 20 qualifying candidates into two groups.

The debate’s first group, which will appear July 30, includes eight candidates running as moderate pragmatists, along with the field’s two highest-profile liberals, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The second group, which will go July 31, has Biden and Harris, as well as Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Julián Castro, the former housing secretary, whose campaign surged following his performance in the June debate.

— The top 5 matchups to watch

Biden vs. Harris: Biden, the former vice president, was caught unprepared for the frontal attack by Harris, of California, on his record on race issues last month.

Sanders vs. Warren: The top liberals in the race, the two senators met privately before their campaigns began and agreed not to attack each other. That peace treaty will be put to the test as they stand next to each other at the center of the first night’s debate stage.

Klobuchar vs. Buttigieg: Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has made little secret of her displeasure that lesser-experienced male candidates like Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas congressman, received gobs of media attention that has yet to come her way. Now she will be standing next to Buttigieg, and have her chance to take him down a peg.

Booker vs. Biden: Before Harris went after Biden during the first debate, it was Booker who demanded he apologize for praising segregationist senators. But unlike Harris, Booker didn’t sustain the attack. Now he will have a chance, as he stands next to the former vice president.

Inslee vs. the moderators: Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington has made his campaign a crusade to discuss climate change, a topic that received little airtime in the first set of debates. Expect a lot of griping from him about the topic getting short shift, no matter how much it is discussed in Detroit.

— How did they draw the names?

CNN divided the field into two groups of 10 candidates as only the network could. There were dark blue cards and light blue cards, and three tiers of candidates, each with their own box to be drawn from. (The campaigns were allowed to inspect the boxes before the drawing, a person involved in the inspection said.)

In what could have passed for a parody of an NFL pregame show, the network showed three simultaneous camera shots of the live drawing, so viewers at home could see the inside of the box as well as the CNN personality as they lifted the cards out.

And there was plenty of commentary about who might wind up on which night before the cards were drawn — a delay to add tension to what was, literally, picking names out of a box.

The spectacle may wind up being a one-time-only event. Just six candidates have qualified for the party’s September debate in Houston. If 10 or fewer reach the polling and fundraising threshold, that debate (and likely subsequent ones) will air on just a single night.

And the drawing, hokey as it may have seemed as live television programming, was a high-stakes event. Next week is likely to be the last time many of the candidates will appear on a presidential debate stage in this election cycle. And the first set of debates proved that drawing a successful contrast with an opponent can provide rocket fuel for a campaign.

Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has raised the threshold to participate in the party’s third debate, in September. Candidates must receive contributions from 130,000 donors and earn at least 2% support in at least four qualifying polls to participate.

— How will the second debates differ from the first?

CNN announced last week that it will forbid the sort of raise-your-hand questions that led to a stage of Democratic presidential candidates announcing their support for extending federal health insurance benefits to undocumented immigrants.

CNN will also not ask down-the-line questions like NBC, which asked each candidate to provide one-word responses to the same query.

( Biden on Monday pooh-poohed the NBC format. “I’m not doing any more raise-your-hand questions,” he told an audience in Des Moines, Iowa.)

The network also said it will penalize any candidate who “consistently interrupts” by reducing the amount of time he or she is allowed to speak.

Given the obvious benefit of interrupting to draw contrasts with debate opponents, it remains to be seen how effective this rule will be.

— What lessons did candidates learn the last time around?

An onstage attack, skillfully delivered, can turn a struggling candidate into one on the rise.

Harris raised nearly one-third of her campaign’s second-quarter fundraising total in the week after she attacked Biden during the June debate.

Castro said Sunday that his campaign had accrued 60,000 donors since he went after O’Rourke’s immigration position — enough to push Castro past the 130,000-donor threshold to qualify for the September debate. (He has yet to meet the polling requirement.)

Castro, during an interview Sunday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said his first debate performance put him “on a lot more radar screens and a lot more lists of people’s three or four top candidates.”

Other candidates, he said, will likely be prepared to emulate his success when they gather in Detroit.

“As you move up,” he said, “you’re probably more subject to potential attacks.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/us/politics/next-democratic-debate-cnn.html" id="e3f56142-566d-392f-af1e-5a9a37999cb0">The New York Times</a>.

Harris and Biden Will Face Off Again in Second Round of Debates

There will be a round two for former Vice President Joe Biden versus Sen. Kamala Harris.

The debates, split across two nights on July 30-31, will also feature a matchup of the field’s leading progressive candidates: Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who have thus far avoided criticizing each other.

Here are the lineups for the debates:

Night one:

— Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

— Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont

— Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota

— Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas

— Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana

— Former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland

— Former Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado

Night two:

— Sen. Kamala Harris of California

— Former Vice President Joe Biden

Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Joe Biden, who clashed over Biden’s history with busing during the first Democratic presidential debate, will meet again onstage later this month when the candidates gather for the second set of debates in Detroit.

Reid J. Epstein

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