More than forty years separate them: Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are the stars of the democratic debate on Friday in Manchester, four days from primary in New Hampshire and after having each claimed victory in the caucuses of Iowa. Seven candidates qualified for this eighth electoral debate, which begins at 8 p.m. local time (2 a.m. Saturday in France) and in which the two claimed winners of Monday's suffrage will be the preferred targets.
Bernie Sanders, 78-year-old independent Vermont senator and self-proclaimed "socialist", denounced the "billionaire donors" of "Mayor Pete" on Friday. “I like Pete Buttigieg, a nice guy. But right now the billionaires are controlling not only our economy but also our political life , ”he said. Pete Buttigieg, a 38-year-old former mayor of a small town in Indiana and a moderate candidate, created a surprise in the Midwest by beating Bernie Sanders. They each claimed victory in Iowa according to different criteria, in the number of delegates for Buttigieg and in the popular vote for Sanders.
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The ballot, which opened the primary season, turned into a fiasco. The official results, released only Thursday, were riddled with error and the Democratic Party had to resolve to declare no winner until the ballots were rechecked. But Iowa has created a new dynamic for the two candidates who are neck and neck in New Hampshire, according to a poll released Thursday evening by the Boston Globe. The rating of Pete Buttigieg has continued to climb from Iowa and, with 23% of voting intentions, he now follows Bernie Sanders (24%). The progressive senator Elizabeth Warren is behind with 13% while the former vice-president of Barack Obama Joe Biden is even further (11%).
Biden "must recover"
"We know we are still the underdogs, but we are driven by the same hope and the same vision of a better policy that builds a new majority for change," Pete Buttigieg, a former soldier who lives openly, said on Twitter on Friday. his homosexuality. Neil Levesque, director of the Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, recalls that the former local elected representative has long been "taken lightly" while "making good scores since the summer" in the polls in this state in the northeast of the country. Bernie Sanders, 2016's unhappy opponent of Hillary Clinton, said on Friday that he was "proud" of his victory in Iowa at a meeting in Manchester. On Twitter, he said he was waging "the strongest campaign to beat Donald Trump," after announcing a record $ 25 million fundraiser in January.
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Behind the Sanders-Buttigieg duo, the other Democratic candidates are trying to relaunch their campaign. Joe Biden, 77, who insists on his past as a senator for 36 years and the right hand of Barack Obama, quipped Wednesday about Pete Buttigieg's lack of experience by calling him "mayor of 100,000 inhabitants" , in reference to his tenure in South Bend between 2012 and 2019. Biden also stressed his own ability to rally while Bernie Sanders' socialist label could scare moderate voters and benefit Republican Donald Trump.
For Neil Levesque, the former vice-president "has a lot to lose" in New Hampshire. "He really has to recover" to avoid a new underperformance that would be "difficult" for his candidacy, said the expert. Joe Biden reorganized his campaign team and appointed a renowned strategist to lead it. He hopes to start again in the next primary, on February 22 in Nevada, and bounce back in South Carolina, on February 29, when the black and religious electorate is largely favorable to him, unlike Buttigieg.
Read also: American primaries: Pete Buttigieg, the ex-homosexual soldier, remains in the lead pack
These primaries also take place in the shadow of Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York who intends to embody, just like Biden the moderate wing of the party. Billionaire with an almost unlimited budget, he spent several hundred million dollars on television and internet spots for his entry into the contest during the “Super Tuesday”, when fourteen states will vote on March 3. He will therefore not participate in the debate on Friday evening, unlike the moderate senator Amy Klobuchar, the businessman Andrew Yang and another billionaire, Tom Steyer. All three are far behind the top quartet in the polls.