New Hampshire debate: Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg clash, as Joe Biden seeks a come back
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After a tumultuous week gathering results from Monday's Iowa caucus, Democrats faced off in a New Hampshire debate before ahead of the state's first-in-the-nation primary next week to help determine the Democratic nominee in the 2020 presidential election. New Hampshire, neighbouring the home states of both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, will hold its primary on 11 February.
The debate saw intense clashes, with Mr Sanders and Pete Buttigieg defending their momentum out of Iowa, where the two candidates led the pack. Joe Biden was on the offensive as well, even as he recognised that a win in New Hampshire may be a long shot — and candidate Amy Klobuchar provided a strong night as she seeks a surprise moment in the race.
Following delays and reports of inconsistencies that could significantly alter the final results, Mr Buttigieg barely cracked a razor-thin lead over Vermont senator Sanders, who captured the most votes in both rounds of the caucus but captured two fewer state delegate equivalents in that contest. Massachusetts senator Warren came in a near-distant third, and former vice president Joe Biden fell to fourth place.
Following his disappointing showing, Mr Biden has shaken up his campaign, promoting Anita Dunn to lead his White House bid, while Mr Sanders criticised Mr Buttigieg's billionaire-funded campaign as well as billionaire candidate Michael Bloomberg. "He is spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the election", Mr Sanders said. "There's something wrong with that."
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Warren now says "we have a gun violence problem in America".
She notes that there are few headlines about gun violence in communities of color, around suicide and then says that women are often the victims of gun violence in domestic disputes.
Warren, on abortion attacks in the US judicial system: "I've lived in an America where abortion was illegal, and rich women still got abortions."
Steyer chastises the room for not discussing the issue of race more.
Buttigieg just said that the US needs to eliminate incarceration for small drug offenses.
The moderator asked why arrests for those crimes went up during his first years as mayor of South Bend, which appeared to get some claps from the audience.
"No," Warren says of Buttigieg's explanation of his time as mayor, and why African Americans were arrested more than whites in his city.
She received plenty of applause, before saying "we need to rework our criminal justice system" at every level.
After a lengthy exchange on race in the US, Warren suggests that Democrats tend to say they care about those issues during elections, only to ignore them after winning.
"I think it's time we have real, concrete plans that are going to make a difference in people's lives," she says before pitching her 2 per cent wealth tax, which she says will help close the black-white wealth gap on things like education spending.
Steyer, who has been inserting himself into the issue of race, and at one point came out in favor of reparations, said that he would create a commission on race as president.
"I don't think anyone ought to be able to buy their way into a nomination or into the presidency of the United States," Warren says of Michael Bloomberg, before adding that no billionaire should be president nor should anyone "suck up" to billionaires.
She then says that she and Klobuchar are the only ones on the stage who are not billionaires or receiving help from PACs.
Klobuchar also says they all should go after Citizens United. Popular position on the left, to be honest.
Buttigieg responds to Sanders accusing him of courting billionaires by noting the absurdity of "mayor of South Bend, Indiana" would be a title of a person who becomes a fundraising juggernaut.
Buttigieg is raising a lot of money from high-dollar fundraisers, however.
He also notes that he is the only one on the stage who isn't a billionaire or millionaire.
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