It may not come anywhere close to the two raucous, yet hugely-entertaining Republican encounters, but the first Democratic presidential debate in las Vegas will see front-runner Hillary Clinton and her main challenger Bernie Sanders face off, with three other candidates struggling to emerge from the fringes.
Pundits have been speculating that Vice President Joe Biden may fly into the famed casino city just in time to announce his bid and join the Tuesday evening debate (6 am Wednesday India time), but his daily schedule released by the White House indicated that he would stay put in Washington for meetings in the afternoon.
Whether or not Biden opts to take the plunge at this point, he has managed to keep his party and supporters guessing. The “Draft Biden” group that has been working on him for months released a new TV ad just hours before the debate, urging him to run.
While the Biden shadow may still be looming large, it’s Clinton who has been leading the narrow Democratic field all along, with some spirited challenge from Senator Sanders, who has attracted much larger crowds for most of this season. A Real Clear Politics average of seven major polls puts Clinton at 43.1 per cent, with Sanders at 25.9 and the undeclared Biden at 17.3 per cent.
Three others in the fray — former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and former Rhode Island Governor lincoln Chafee —are all polling just 1 per cent or even less.
By all accounts, Tuesday evening’s debate may essentially turn out to be an encounter between Clinton and Sanders, who calls himself a “Democratic Socialist”. For the other three, a sound performance could propel them from their current marginal presence in the race.
Hillary, despite leading the table, has faced major distractions, notably the controversy over her use of a private email server during her four years as Secretary of State. Republicans have also been targeting her for her handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack in 2012 that killed US envoy Christopher Stevens and three other American staffers.