In a messy South Carolina Democratic forum, featuring frequent interruptions, angry crosstalk and theatrical hand-waving, Bernie Sanders faced the most serious test so far.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The Democratic presidential candidates delivered a barrage of criticism against their party’s emerging front-runner, Senator Bernie Sanders, at a debate on Tuesday night, casting him as a divisive figure with unrealistic ideas, even as they continued to batter Michael R. Bloomberg for his extreme wealth, his record on policing and his behavior toward women.
In a messy South Carolina forum characterized by frequent interruptions, angry cross talk and theatrical hand-waving, Mr. Sanders faced the most serious test so far of his bid to lead the Democratic Party into the general election. His rivals charged at him on multiple fronts, including his history of opposing certain forms of gun control, his plans for single-payer health care and, most of all, his odds of beating President Trump.
But the mood of combat enveloped candidates besides Mr. Sanders, with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts again castigating Mr. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, in vivid terms about his past support for Republicans and allegations that he had pressured an employee to have an abortion, a charge Mr. Bloomberg vehemently denied. And in an explosive manifestation of a bitter rivalry for South Carolina’s voters, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. rebuked Tom Steyer, a billionaire spending heavily in the state, for having previously invested in private prison companies.
It was Mr. Sanders, however, who had the roughest night: Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., warned that nominating Mr. Sanders would not only cost Democrats their chance to capture the White House, but also jeopardize their majority in the House and their chance of taking the Senate.
Pointing to the congressional Democrats elected in 2018, Mr. Buttigieg told Mr. Sanders, “They are running away from your platform as fast as they possibly can.”
Mr. Bloomberg joined in, saying of Mr. Sanders: “Can anybody in this room imagine moderate Republicans going over and voting for him?”
Mr. Biden, fighting for survival in the state on which he has staked his candidacy, delivered perhaps the most searing critique of Mr. Sanders, invoking the 2015 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church here in Charleston to confront Mr. Sanders for his mixed record on guns.
“Nine people shot dead by a white supremacist,” Mr. Biden said, then rebuked Mr. Sanders for his past opposition to waiting periods for gun purchasers: “I’m not saying he’s responsible for the nine deaths, but that man would not have been able to get that weapon if the waiting period had been what I suggest.”
Mr. Sanders and Mr. Bloomberg both answered their critics somewhat sparingly, choosing a handful of attacks to parry without delivering point-by-point rebuttals.
Addressing concerns about his electability, Mr. Sanders, a Vermont liberal, claimed that in the overwhelming majority of polls he came out ahead of Mr. Trump. He responded forcefully to an attack by Mr. Bloomberg claiming that the Russian government was seeking to buoy Mr. Sanders’s campaign, citing Mr. Bloomberg’s past laudatory remarks about President Xi Jinping of China.
On display, too, was Ms. Warren’s dual challenge as she fights for national momentum ahead of next week’s Super Tuesday contests: On the one hand, she is plainly eager to keep up a battle against Mr. Bloomberg that has delighted her supporters and reinvigorated her candidacy. At the same time, she must contend, perhaps more urgently, with the fast and formidable rise of Mr. Sanders on the left — a force she tried to counter by casting herself as the more accomplished progressive.
She pointed to their shared history of battling Wall Street: “In 2008, we both got our chance,” Ms. Warren said, “but I dug in, I fought the big banks, I built the coalitions and I won.”
For the second consecutive debate, Mr. Bloomberg visibly sighed and rolled his eyes as Ms. Warren assailed his variegated political history and demanded fuller disclosure from Mr. Bloomberg’s company about its treatment of women. Mentioning his history of giving large campaign contributions to Republicans, Ms. Warren said, “The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him.”
Mr. Bloomberg tried to pivot away from Ms. Warren’s criticism to make an argument about his own experience, alluding to his role taking over New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “I have the experience, I have the resources and I have the record,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “and all of the sideshows that the senator wants to bring up have nothing to do with that.”
But as in the last debate, Mr. Bloomberg’s loose phrasing offered Ms. Warren the chance to throw a hard counterpunch: What Mr. Bloomberg called a “sideshow,” she said, involved matters as serious as pregnancy discrimination.
Still, Mr. Bloomberg was clearly the secondary target of the night. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Mr. Buttigieg, too, confronted Mr. Sanders, boring in on him over his expansive policy proposals and the risk they said he would pose.
“The math does not add up,” said Ms. Klobuchar, arguing that Mr. Sanders’s agenda amounted to “a bunch of broken promises that sound good on bumper stickers.” Inserting himself, Mr. Buttigieg pointed out that the front-runner had no support from the freshman lawmakers who gave House Democrats their majority in 2018.
Soon, though, the debate devolved into something of a rhetorical melee, with the seven candidates talking, and nearly shouting, over another.
Eventually Mr. Sanders was able to speak and cited studies indicating that “Medicare for all will save money,” but before long he was facing more incoming from Mr. Bloomberg, who called the long-term consequences of a Sanders nomination and Trump re-election a “catastrophe.”
When Mr. Sanders was able to reply, he castigated Mr. Bloomberg for having the support of only billionaires.
Similarly, when Mr. Sanders was asked about a vote he cast to protect gun manufacturers, the senator was met with boos when he initially responded that “Joe has voted for terrible trade agreements.”
In a sign that Mr. Steyer was making inroads with South Carolina’s black voters, Mr. Biden also took on the billionaire and first-time candidate, noting that Mr. Steyer had invested in private prisons that “hogtied young men.”
Stung by the attack, Mr. Steyer said he had sold his stock in private prisons and then sought to highlight Mr. Biden’s support for the hard-line 1990s crime bill. But Mr. Biden interrupted him and tagged him with a new nickname for changing his mind on private prisons: “Tommy Come Lately.”
This debate, the 10th of the primary season, was the first time that the Democratic candidates gathered with a measure of clarity about who was in command of the race. Coming off his landslide win in Nevada, and successes in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Sanders is the clear front-runner for the nomination. What is less clear is who may emerge as his most formidable opponent.
After worse-than-expected showings in the first two states, Mr. Biden is hoping to parlay his second-place finish in Nevada into a victory in South Carolina, a state he has long portrayed as his firewall. His candidacy depends on it. Should the former vice president win here, he could go into the 14 states and one territory voting this coming Tuesday as the top alternative to Mr. Sanders.
Mr. Biden is counting on strong support from this state’s black community, which will make up over half the primary electorate, to deliver him a victory on Saturday. And to this end, he is counting on a boost from Representative James E. Clyburn, South Carolina’s most prominent African-American lawmaker, who has told associates he will endorse Mr. Biden on Wednesday.
Yet public polls show Mr. Sanders is cutting into Mr. Biden’s lead in South Carolina and, after months of playing down expectations in a state where the Vermont senator was routed in 2016, his campaign is competing to win here. It is airing an ad featuring a local black woman who said she switched her support to Mr. Sanders from Mr. Biden.
Mr. Bloomberg was facing a mortal test of his own, after a disastrous first debate in Las Vegas last week that threatened to undo much of his progress in the Democratic race. An extended onslaught from Ms. Warren left Mr. Bloomberg flailing to respond, most prominently on the matter of nondisclosure agreements that he and his company have reached over the years with women who made allegations of harassment and discrimination.
Jonathan Martin reported from Charleston, and Alexander Burns from New York.
