It’s Debate Day
The top 10 Democratic presidential candidates will be on a single stage for the first time Thursday night. That means a matchup months in the making — between former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts — will come to realization. Here are other key dynamics to watch for.
Mr. Biden and Ms. Warren present two starkly different options for Democratic voters, embodying competing theories about what the Democratic Party should stand for and what direction it should take in 2020.
Senator Kamala Harris of California had a great June debate, but her campaign lost steam over the summer. Her surrogates, donors, and even some supporters hope that in Houston tonight she can recapture the magic that initially won them over.
In the first debates, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota refused to embrace the party’s more liberal ideas or draw an explicit contrast with more progressive candidates. It’s a strategy betting on the patience of Democratic primary voters — if only she can attract their attention.
Democratic candidates do not lack ideas on the issues of immigration and border control. But as they prepare to take the stage, most would rather talk about the hard-line policies of the man they seek to replace.
In a survey, The New York Times asked presidential candidates to detail their beliefs on the limits of executive power, and to say which new restraints on presidential power they would sign into law if elected. Here’s what they said.
President Trump’s top advisers claimed credit Wednesday for a Republican’s narrow victory in a special House election in North Carolina the night before. The win only underscored how the widening urban-rural divide is complicating 2020 for both parties.
As mysterious vaping-related illnesses spread, the Trump administration said on Wednesday that it would prohibit the sale of most flavored e-cigarettes.
The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to bar most Central American migrants from seeking asylum in the United States, while the legal fight plays out in the courts.
Mr. Trump pushed aides to intervene with a federal scientific agency, according to people familiar with the events, which led to a highly unusual public rebuke of the forecasters who disputed Mr. Trump’s claim about Hurricane Dorian’s path.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Mr. Trump urged the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to zero or even usher in negative rates, just one day before a key European Central Bank meeting.
Mr. Trump said Wednesday night that the United States would delay its next planned tariff increase on China by two weeks, as “a gesture of goodwill.”
