There were five Democrats who came out of the debates looking properly presidential

The Democratic presidential debates the past two nights were humanizing for the 24 people vying for the nomination. They were no longer just names associated with controversies or soundbites: on the stage Wednesday and Thursday night, the candidates transformed into people with voices and experiences for Americans watching intently from their homes.

Some surprising leaders emerged.

Wednesday

In the Wednesday night debates, some voices were louder than others. Lesser well-known candidate Julian Castro walked away a household name, and Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke put in solid performances demonstrating they had a clear knowledge of the issues and specific plans to address them.

Elizabeth Warren was consistent, confident, genuine and detailed, but she chose not to shout over the other candidates — unlike some of the men.

On the healthcare issue, Senator Warren and New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio were the only ones to raise their hands when asked whether they’d eliminate private health insurance as president.

Senator Amy Klobuchar shut down Washington Governor Jay Inslee when he mentioned his progressive polices on women, reminding Inslee that she and the other two women on the panel (Warren and Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard) had extensive records of fighting for women’s rights.

Another standout feature of Wednesday night’s debates was the amount of candidates speaking Spanish. Former Congressmen Beto O’Rourke of Texas showed off his fluent Español, while Cory Booker and Julian Castro also addressed the audience directly in Spanish. Despite the code-switching, former HUD secretary Julian Castro was the only candidate in both the Wednesday and Thursday night debates to specifically mention Section 1325 of US immigration law. In a jab at the former Texas Congressman, Castro told him to “do his homework” on the law, which makes it illegal to cross a US border without the proper documentation – even when a person or family crosses with the intent to apply for asylum.

The stances taken on Wednesday by the candidates were also considerably more progressive than in the 2016 debates. With Elizabeth Warren using words like “Latinx”, she was speaking directly to a younger generation of Latinos whose organic vocabulary includes gender neutral language to self-identify. That’s something which didn’t go unnoticed by a growing demographic of younger, less socially conservative Latino voters.

Thursday

On Thursday night, things got more heated. From the outset the candidates began to attack Senator Bernie Sanders, except New York Times bestselling author Marianne Williamson, who called out all the candidates once she was given a chance to speak and ended the night saying if she were elected to the White House she would fight Trump with love, not political fearmongering.

Biden spent the evening touting his career in government, giving mostly textbook political responses that seemed contrived and lacking in energy.

Bernie remained strong and stuck to his key issues. The Vermont Senator appeared sincere and well prepared for the presidency should he get elected.

Senator Kamala Harris and, I would argue, Pete Buttigieg made equally strong cases in different ways: they were articulate and confident, they showed that they fundamentally understood the issues and had concrete ideas about how to make important changes if elected to the White House.

The most memorable moment in the Thursday night debate was Harris’s takedown of Joe Biden. In the second hour of the debate, the seasoned interrogator brought up Biden’s recent comments about working with segregationists and his problematic civil rights record. She was so good, and the issue was so important, that the moderators let her continue her line of questioning about his record of opposing busing by the Department of Education after the landmark Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education, which she reminded him directly affected her as a child. Instead of taking the opportunity to apologize for a terrible decision in his political career, Biden instead went on the offensive and lashed out at her career as a prosecutor, mentioning his time spent as a public defender.

On the healthcare issue, Bernie reminded women that his Medicare-for-All plan would cover abortions, since they’ve been under attack from Republican members of Congress and Republican legislatures in the south. Senator Harris and Senator Sanders were also the only two candidates to say they’d abolish private insurance if elected president.

Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper made a good case for all the successful, progressive changes he implemented in Colorado and warned against socialism, twice.

Finally, the moderators put Biden on the spot for his vote for the war in Iraq during the Bush years, asking whether Americans could trust him to make the right decision were he to be elected to the White House. Bernie jumped in and reminded the audience that he led the opposition to the war. He also noted the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and warned a war in Iran would be far worse than the war in Iraq.

If any of the leaders that emerged from the past two nights became the Democratic nominee (Booker, Buttigieg, Harris, Sanders, or Warren) I believe that Democrats have a good chance at taking back the presidency.

But I have to admit, based on the debates: Senator Harris may be the only candidate ready to take down the Bully-in-Chief in a presidential debate.