Divides between US Democrats vying to challenge US President Donald Trump in next year’s presidential election were on Wednesday laid bare in a combative debate, as rising star South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg acknowledged that he faced challenges in attracting black voters.
Buttigieg, the contest’s youngest candidate who occupies the same moderate lane as front-runner former US vice president Joe Biden, offered a unifying message as a way to bring Democrats and Republicans toward a broad political middle.
Democrats can seize a majority on issues like immigration and guns “if we can galvanize, not polarize that majority,” Buttigieg said.
However, after an opening phase dominated by talk of impeachment of Trump, participants in the fifth Democratic debate locked horns over a costly universal healthcare program supported by liberal US senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
“I believe that commanding people to accept that option, whether we wait three years as Senator Warren has proposed or whether you do it right out of the gate, is not the right approach to unify the American people around a very, very big transformation that we now have an opportunity to deliver,” Buttigieg said.
Biden also took aim at the reform plan, saying that it would be wiser to build on existing policy to provide a public option.
“The fact is that right now the vast majority of Democrats do not support ‘Medicare for All,’” Biden said.
Biden, the face of the Democratic Party establishment, turned 77 on Wednesday and appeared to stumble over his words on several occasions, including during his opening remarks.
Buttigieg, a military veteran who at 37 is less than half Biden’s age, sought to paint himself as a young outsider who should be elected commander-in-chief, despite his slender resume.
However, when pressed by US Senator Kamala Harris, the only black woman in the field of hopefuls, about his low polling among African-American voters, Buttigieg acknowledged that he had yet to convince one of the party’s most important constituencies.
“I welcome the challenge of connecting with black voters in America who don’t yet know me,” said Buttigieg, the first major openly gay US presidential candidate. “While I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country.”
As the 10 qualifying candidates rumbled in their nationally televised showdown, dominating the political discourse were high-stakes impeachment hearings into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, but some candidates warned that obsessing over the president could sabotage Democrats’ efforts.
“We cannot simply be consumed by Donald Trump,” Sanders said. “Because if we are, you know what? We’re going to lose the election.”
Candidates also leaped at the chance to critique Trump’s foreign policy on North Korea and Saudi Arabia.
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