Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for the Feb. 7 Democratic presidential candidate debate in Manchester, N.H. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers rank the candidates on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 means the candidate probably didn’t belong on the stage and should probably drop out; 10 means it’s on, President Trump. Here’s what our columnists and contributors thought about the debate.
Read what our columnists and contributors thought of the January debate.
Amy Klobuchar
Jamelle Bouie (7/10) — Klobuchar sounded confident and aggressive, willing and able to go after her competitors. Her defense of experience, in particular, was strong. More and more, she looks like a real alternative for moderate Democrats.
Elizabeth Bruenig (7.5/10) — Klobuchar knows what she wants to be (a flinty, unflinching moderate) and she is good at performing it (presumably because she is a flinty, unflinching moderate).
Jorge Castañeda (7.5/10) — Her closing statement was her best moment of the night: moving, ingenious, eloquent. She had strong stances on impeachment and Obama, but lacked them on other issues.
Michelle Goldberg (9/10) — She managed to shred Buttigieg while coming off as funny and sensible. Her final riff on F.D.R. was masterful.
Nicole Hemmer (9/10) — Klobuchar is the purest test of whether debates matter. If they do, she’ll surge in the polls — she nailed every single answer tonight.
Liz Mair (9/10) — She delivered attention-grabbing knocks on opponents, looked and sounded presidential and full of heart. And kept bringing it back to Trump. She knocked him even more effectively than she knocked Buttigieg with the “cartoons” jab.
Daniel McCarthy (4/10) — She injects legislative reality into the wishful policy thinking of the rest. But that doesn’t make a case for her as president.
Bret Stephens (10/10) — Klobuchar had her best night of the campaign and should be recognized as the debate’s victor. Her closing lines, playing off of the memory of F.D.R., were as convincing as they were canny.
Mimi Swartz (10/10) — Solid, knowledgeable; still a mystery why she isn’t gaining more ground. No snotty one-liners, no cheap shots. She radiated sincerity and commitment.
Will Wilkinson (9/10) — She shook every nickel from grandpa’s coffee can and left it all onstage. She shivved Buttigieg for greenhorn temerity, lightly red-baited Sanders and finished big with a quavering paean to empathy. If New Hampshire’s not feeling it, she’s done.
Bernie Sanders
Jamelle Bouie (7/10) — Sanders is consistently strong in these debates, skilled at taking any question and pivoting directly into his central pitch. He did exactly what he needed to do to hold his position in the race.
Elizabeth Bruenig (9/10) — What makes Sanders a true radical is his impatience for superficial and peripheral matters and his keen focus on underlying causes. He laid out a vision for total war on the roots of so much (though not all) American misery. He also excoriated the past few decades of American foreign policy, named Saudia Arabia as a major American foe and got a quick snuggle from Joe Biden. All in all, a pretty good night.
Jorge Castañeda (8/10) — Very good on impeachment, and surprisingly anti-isolationist. The only clear voice on putting climate change first.
Michelle Goldberg (8/10) — He’s the clear front-runner and many in the party have grave doubts about him, but he took far fewer hits than Buttigieg.
Nicole Hemmer (8/10) — Sanders deftly balanced policy and principle, defending his agenda while repeatedly underscoring the damage Donald Trump has done and the danger he represents.
Liz Mair (6/10) — It’s the same show every time. You either love it or you hate it.
Daniel McCarthy (7/10) — Passion and a willingness to name the interests he thinks are destroying America make him the field’s leader, though lack of practicality may cost him the nomination.
Bret Stephens (7/10) — A lifetime of rigid ideological consistency has its advantages when it comes to trotting out talking points. But the repetition can get tedious. Isn’t a foolish consistency the hobgoblin of little minds?
Mimi Swartz (8.5/10) — Quick, sharp, didn’t falter. Defended socialism well, but that’s not a path to victory. Wish someone had asked him about those sexist bros, though.
Will Wilkinson (8/10) — Sanders held strong in the face of the moderators’ invitation to others to attack his democratic socialism, made his standard compelling pitch and took no real damage. He’s firmly in the driver’s seat.
Elizabeth Warren
Jamelle Bouie (8/10) — Every answer Warren gave was strong. She even put pressure on Buttigieg, hitting him in a way he couldn’t recover from. But she didn’t get the same speaking time as her competitors and it’s not clear she’ll get the boost she needs to overcome either Buttigieg or Sanders.
Elizabeth Bruenig (8/10) — Warren had a difficult dual task in this debate — to peel back center-leaning supporters lost to the young mayor without losing left-leaning supporters to the elder senator. She played her hits — anti-corruption, anti-monopoly, pro-regulation, with a strong pitch for the future: If universal child care doesn’t sound good to you, I would love for you to hold at least one of my kids while I monitor the next debate.
Jorge Castañeda (7/10) — She continues to be the most substantive of the candidates. In the end she does not seem to connect with voters.
Michelle Goldberg (7/10) — She didn’t get enough speaking time, but the question about child poverty set her up for a great peroration.
Nicole Hemmer (6/10) — Warren delivered her usual sharp, studied answers — but nothing about her performance will catapult her out of a third-place standing in New Hampshire.
Liz Mair (6/10) — An O.K. debate, but before wading in on race and discrimination issues, she might review her campaign; in Nevada, some women of color left in frustration. And stop beginning sentences with “so” or “look.”
Daniel McCarthy (4/10) — She can be sharp on policy but comes off as more exasperated than energizing — second fiddle to Sanders.
Bret Stephens (5/10) — The senator from Massachusetts needed to crush it to recover from her weak finish in Iowa. She didn’t succeed.
Mimi Swartz (6/10) — Faltering, too reliant on the same old talking points and applause lines. Maybe she could leave investigating Trump to federal prosecutors in New York? Calling Buttigieg a suck up was pretty funny.
Will Wilkinson (8/10) — Warren was incisive, passionate and persuasive, offering compelling pitches on corruption, racial justice and Afghanistan. But she was hurt by a lack of airtime, despite her top-three standing.
Pete Buttigieg
Jamelle Bouie (6/10) — If you judge candidates by their ability to mouth platitudes, then Buttigieg was the winner. If you judge them by the substance of their remarks, then Buttigieg clearly flailed when he couldn’t pivot to vaguely inspirational rhetoric.
Elizabeth Bruenig (5/10) — Now he knows what it feels like to mount the stage a front-runner. Klobuchar has had a wickedly cutting way of dispatching Buttigieg. This time around it was a tough and profound critique to recover from, and he didn’t.
Jorge Castañeda (7.5/10) — He came across as more authentic, but also blatantly evaded questions.
Michelle Goldberg (6/10) — He was, as always, mostly fluent, but he had no answer for the question about egregious racial disparities in marijuana arrests when he was mayor of South Bend.
Nicole Hemmer (6/10) — Eventually Buttigieg will need to win states with a significant black vote, and with every debate he makes that less and less likely.
Liz Mair (5/10) — His answer about race relations when he was South Bend mayor was truly awful and marred his performance, which was middling relative to what he’s capable of.
Daniel McCarthy (6/10) — Forward looking and always polished — even when struggling to explain increased drug-related arrests for blacks under his mayoral administration.
Bret Stephens (8/10) — Buttigieg is never anything other than verbally fluent, emotionally composed and mostly persuasive — except when it came to criminal-justice issues in his hometown.
Mimi Swartz (8.5/10) — Held his own, defended his funding by rich people and was gracious in support of the Biden family. Reduced the smugness factor. O.K., make him secretary of defense.
Will Wilkinson (6/10) — Mayor Pete needed to consolidate his post-Iowa front-runner status but mainly played defense, came off as a platitude machine and displayed serious weakness on race.
Joe Biden
Jamelle Bouie (5/10) — He just doesn’t seem like he has the heart, or the energy, to clear the field and claim victory.
Elizabeth Bruenig (5.5/10) — Ceded that his loss in Iowa was painful, though he attempted to argue it wasn’t significant. Amid attacks on Sanders and defenses of his own record on the Iraq war, Biden seemed caught up in the past — and sounded like it, too.
Jorge Castañeda (8/10) — This may have been his best debate yet. He was combative, good on abortion and the Supreme Court. After Iowa, he seems to thrive best in adversity.
Michelle Goldberg (6/10) — “The politics of the past were not all that bad” could be the defining line of his lukewarm campaign, though the standing ovation for Alexander Vindman was a lovely moment.
Nicole Hemmer (6/10) — Aside from a few lively moments early on, Biden seemed like a man hanging on for dear life. He needs money and votes, and tonight won’t get him either.
Liz Mair (7.5/10) — An animated Biden is a product voters will find more appealing than the chilled out version. He did well after a “meh” week.
Daniel McCarthy (5/10) — Experience is good, and Biden knows the issues. Yet he looks only backward and isn’t honest about his vote for war in Iraq.
Bret Stephens (3/10) — Watching Joe Biden perform is a bit like watching a high school play: You’re rooting for the players, you’re grading on a curve, and you’re grateful they remember their lines. But you also know it isn’t Broadway.
Mimi Swartz (7/10) — A gaffeless performance; dropping in the polls becomes him. Finally, some passion. More convincing on past accomplishments than on the future.
Will Wilkinson (4/10) — Biden is on the ropes, and he felt punch drunk. He’s determined to see it through, but he seems to be running on the fumes of aggressive indignation.
Andrew Yang
Jamelle Bouie (5/10) — Yang, like Sanders, knows how to turn a question to his priorities. But Yang, unlike Sanders, doesn’t have anything to say beyond his pitch for a cash giveaway. And while this appeals to some, it does not wear well when it’s his answer to every single problem and social issue.
Elizabeth Bruenig (5.5/10) — Yang seems like a cool guy, and perhaps like the ideal candidate for a Democratic primary in a parallel universe where capital and labor cooperate with kindly comity. But for now, he represents an odd third way in an emerging intra-party power struggle that really has only two sides.
Jorge Castañeda (6/10) — A single-issue and single-theme candidate.
Michelle Goldberg (5/10) — His smarmy argument against holding Trump accountable for his crimes in office was a turnoff.
Nicole Hemmer (3/10) — He barely registers in the polls, and he barely registered onstage. There’s a reason: Universal basic income isn’t a panacea, and onstage, he rarely has any other ideas.
Liz Mair (6/10) — A breath of fresh air, but he should have studied up on New Hampshire’s libertarian streak. He lost ground because of state-specific quirks he seemed unaware of.
Daniel McCarthy (3/10) — He’s right to distinguish human value from economic value and praise stay-at-home mothers. But he’s running to give a TED Talk, not to become president.
Bret Stephens (π/10) — Hard to take seriously a guy who thinks automation is a serious threat to prosperity, the most economically illiterate idea of the last 500 years.
Mimi Swartz (7/10) — Improving with each debate; no longer has to fight to be taken seriously. A better avatar of the future than Buttigieg.
Will Wilkinson (5/10) — Yang has brought a welcome fresh perspective to the race, but he didn’t have his best night, and at this point he feels like a distraction.
Tom Steyer
Jamelle Bouie (6/10) — With his constant focus on electability — on who can beat Donald Trump — and his regular detours to talk about race, it was clear Steyer wasn’t trying to reach out to New Hampshire voters as much as he was making a pitch to any South Carolina voters who happened to be watching. And you know what, I think it might work.
Elizabeth Bruenig (6/10) — With his tartan tie and goofy affect, Steyer has become an oddball lefty favorite — not in any serious electoral sense, but rather in a season’s-best-supporting-character sense.
Jorge Castañeda (6.5/10) — Race is his issue. Unfortunately, he was flat on other issues.
Michelle Goldberg (5/10) — His attempt to score against Biden by demanding that he answer for a comment by one of his South Carolina surrogates fell flat.
Nicole Hemmer (4/10) — Steyer sounds like a guy holding forth on politics over cocktails. He makes some good points, but not any that make you think he should be president.
Liz Mair (3/10) — Hopefully Bloomberg will sub for Steyer in the next one. Then we’ll have a billionaire whose intent, reasoning and logic are clear and not purposeless, stream-of-consciousness word salad.
Daniel McCarthy (2/10) — Big on rhetoric about climate change and racism, short on serious proposals. And did he really criticize Buttigieg for inexperience?
Bret Stephens (1/10) — Why is this guy even onstage? He’s Mike Bloomberg with less money, less appeal and no lane.
Mimi Swartz (8/10) — His best debate. No longer seems like a tyro fighting to be heard. Secretary of Commerce!
Will Wilkinson (6/10) — Steyer actually sunk one of his many half-court shots when he briefly turned the debate into a seminar on race, possibly putting a crack in Biden’s South Carolina “firewall.”
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About the authors
Jamelle Bouie, Michelle Goldberg and Bret Stephens are Times columnists.
Elizabeth Bruenig (@ebruenig) is an Opinion writer.
Jorge Castañeda (@JorgeGCastaneda), Mexico’s foreign minister from 2000 to 2003, is a professor at N.Y.U. and the author of “Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War” and a contributing opinion writer.
Nicole Hemmer (@pastpunditry) is an associate research scholar at Columbia University and the author of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics.”
Daniel McCarthy (@ToryAnarchist) is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Quarterly.
Liz Mair (@LizMair), a strategist for campaigns by Scott Walker, Roy Blunt, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina and Rick Perry, is the founder and president of Mair Strategies.
Mimi Swartz (@mimiswartz), an executive editor at Texas Monthly, is a contributing opinion writer.
Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson), the vice president for research at the Niskanen Center, is a contributing opinion writer.
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