Pressure Rises For Presidential Hopefuls Ahead Of Debate In Atlanta

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Ten Democratic presidential candidates will debate at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta Wednesday. / GPB News

Top Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning in Atlanta ahead of Wednesday's debate.

After this week, they're going to have to raise more money and get more polling support to qualify for next month's debate, so the pressure is on for the candidates.

GPB's Rickey Bevington was joined by NPR's senior political editor, Domenico Montanaro, from Washington D.C. to break down the debate candidates. 

GPB's Rickey Bevington speaks with NPR's senior political editor, Domenico Montanaro from Washington, D.C. to break down Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta.

This conversation has been edited for content and clarity.

Rickey Bevington: Given that the Democratic National Committee selected Atlanta as the site of this debate, which is a big deal, of course, to Georgians, but really does matter also in the grand scheme of things. What is the significance of this choice?

Domenico Montanaro: Well, look, Georgia's got two Senate seats that are up. The state, itself, has been changing demographically. You think about where the Atlanta area in particular and the suburbs, how they've changed, you know, it's one of the most rapid growths in the country demographically that has really started to shift the politics of the state. It hasn't been some place where Democrats have had a ton of statewide success, but they've been knocking on the door.

That started in 2008 with Barack Obama's candidacy really firing up African-American voters and came fairly close compared to what Democrats have done in the past. A lot of Democrats feel like Georgia is one of those emerging battlegrounds in the Sunbelt that they can have success in over the next 10 to 20 years.

Bevington: So beyond demographics, do you expect some Georgia issues to come up during the debate itself? I'm thinking of the conversation about abortion and voter suppression here. 

Montanaro: Well, certainly those are issues that affect the rest of the country as well. I think that especially with what happened in the governor's race, voter suppression certainly will be the kind of thing that I'm sure a lot of the Democrats will want to talk about.

I've been surprised, actually, though, that the first couple of debates, they didn't really seem to use the area as a way to sort of jump off and ask questions. We'll see if they wind up doing that any differently this time to see if they can make that sort of local-to-national tie. 

Bevington: That's a good point, because when Democrats are campaigning here in Atlanta, we're seeing them talk to a very local audience. But once they hit MSNBC tomorrow night, it's a completely different audience. Who are they going to be talking to?

Montanaro: Well, you've got, like you said, MSNBC moderators who are going to be on stage and be trying to make news, right? [[They'll be]] trying to ask questions of these candidates, and they may very well come up with some of these issues that, of course, will have some local tie. But the idea here, I mean, when you look at the types of candidates who are on the stage, there's a lot at stake.

You think first and foremost about someone like Pete Buttigieg, who was the sort of boxer in the last debate. [He was] able to kind of put Elizabeth Warren off stride just slightly. I think a lot of people are going to want to see, if Pete Buttigieg can do that, is he able to sort of take the heat in his way? I think that when you think about the South and you think about Democratic primaries in the South in particular, the real key here for Democrats to win in the South and to win a primary is you have to win over black voters. Pete Buttigieg is somebody who has struggled with African-American support. He's got a lot of support with white educated liberals in particular, but being able to branch out to black voters has been tougher for him.

So does Joe Biden, for example, the former Vice President, have something of a home field advantage or not? How does Pete Buttigieg wind up talking about some of those issues that are important to the black community? 

Bevington: Women are also a group of people that the Democrats are going to be talking to on the debate stage tomorrow night. There is a moderating panel of four women.

Do you think that the fact that it's women asking questions will influence what types of questions will be asked?

Montanaro: Maybe. There was some criticism of the first debate where there wasn't any discussion of women's reproductive rights. There was conversation in one of the following debates on that., but it is going to be interesting to see that panel.

You're right. Democratic primary voters are overwhelmingly women, and women have made up something like 53% of all voters in the general election. In the Democratic primary, it's even bigger than that. There's such a disparity when you look in the polling about how men and women view President Trump.

For example, in our latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/ Marist poll that just came out today, you had a slight plurality of men approving of the president's job. And women, on the other hand, 20 points underwater for President Trump's approval, very highly disapproving of the job he's doing. [There's] very starkly different realities, a with that sharp gender split.

Democrats need women and need suburban women in particular, the kinds of women that you see outside the Atlanta area to be able to win. They were able to win them over to to be able to net those 40 seats in 2018 to take back the House, and it's hugely crucial for them to be strongly in their corner for 2020. 

Bevington: You mentioned the impeachment testimony and the NPR/PBS/Marist poll.

Of course, there's a lot in that poll, but specifically as it relates to the debate, how might the ongoing impeachment testimonies appear during tomorrow night's debate?

Montanaro: Well, it's really interesting because you've had this impeachment testimony going on today. The one thing that I think has emerged, just in the last 20 minutes or so, is ambassador Former Ambassador Volker, the U.S. special envoy, really praising former Vice President Joe Biden. He talked about how, these are conspiracy theories that President Trump was thinking about looking into, and that he's known Vice President Biden for a quarter century, and he's a good guy and would never do anything to put U.S. national interests at stake. That's really interesting because I feel like he's really had a lot of headwinds against him, that maybe this is something that he can sort of use. I think that the poll, itself, shows that a lot of people are really locked in.

Democrats, I think, are taking some degree of solace in the fact that they haven't actually faced a backlash. Democratic leaders were really concerned that they were going to face a backlash if they went forward with impeachment. That's not happening.

We may be in a place where the tension is so tight that Democrats need to go forward with pursuing this, to be able to keep their base in check as this election seems more and more like a base election. 

Bevington: Domenico, who is the real front runner going into?

Montanaro: I really hate to predict, because one of the things that we also found in our poll is that 75% of Democratic primary voters said that they are still undecided, that they have not absolutely made up their minds yet. That's only down seven points from July, when 82% said that their minds are still open. So, look, there's a lot of fluidity potential here. There's a lot of change that could happen.

You know, if you would ask me a month ago, "when you look at the polling, who's on the rise?" [It would be] Elizabeth Warren. Well, look what's happened since that last debate, where she's been on her back foot trying to defend her Medicare-For-All plan. She's definitely slipped off when it comes to the polling. So you just never know what's going to happen coming out of these debates. [There's] lots of fluidity still.