Local Reaction to Democratic Debate

Sorry, this video is no longer available

Five hopeful presidential candidates took the stage in Tuesday night’s Democratic debate, but it’s the two front runners have been the talk of the town.
 
Five presidential candidates took to the stage in the first democratic debate.

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, former Virginia senator Jim Webb, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Nick Bauroth, a political science professor at NDSU, says one potential candidate rumor was answered by an empty seat.
 
“What would Joe Biden do? What is he going to show up at the last minute is he involved or not, and he didn’t of course show up. People are starting to think maybe he isn’t going to get involved,” says Bauroth.

Sanders and Clinton went head to head discussing hard hitting issues like gun control and capitalism, but overall it was a pretty clean fight.
 
“Go after anyone attack them on their vulnerability and such. You didn’t really see anyone go after Hilary Clinton on what seemed to be the area that she was most vulnerable,” he adds.
 
Many watching last night’s debate, including one student we spoke to, were surprised to see Sanders back up Hilary when it came to the topic of her emails.
 
“To see Bernie kind of stand up for Hilary with the email debate says hey you know this isn’t what this is about,” says student Mikaela Martin.
 
Others found the constant back and forth hard follow.
 
“Trying to find out who’s best…it’s hard to find out when they’re fighting each other so much instead of stating clearly their perspective on things,” says Raul Armas of Fargo.

According to the Huffington Post, the most recently updated poll shows Hillary Clinton is leading the democratic vote by 45.6 percent followed by Bernie Sanders who is at 24.4 percent.