Biden and Sanders Set to Debate During Coronavirus Crisis

👤Joe Biden and 👤Bernie Sanders square off in the first one-on-one debate of the Democratic presidential campaign on Sunday during a widening crisis over the coronavirus that has dramatically upended the daily life of Americans.

The showdown between front-runner Biden and his last viable rival in Sanders, originally scheduled for Phoenix, will take place in a Washington, D.C., studio with no audience, a move made to limit possible exposure to the virus – a sign of how deeply the campaign routine has been reshaped by the global pandemic.

The debate, perhaps the last in the Democratic race to pick an election challenger to Republican President Donald Trump, will give Biden and Sanders an opportunity to project leadership and a sense of calm and stability in a deepening crisis.

“People have been anxious to beat Trump, but now with coronavirus they are just anxious,” said Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Hillary Clinton. “This will be a chance for both of them to look presidential.”

The encounter will provide clues about how far Biden, the former vice president and centrist standard-bearer, might go to seek party unity for the Nov. 3 general election and court the progressive supporters of Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who dropped her White House bid earlier this month but has not endorsed anyone.

A senior Biden campaign official said on Sunday that Biden now supports making public colleges tuition-free to families with incomes below $125,000 per year, similar to a view held by Sanders. On Friday, Biden backed a bankruptcy policy pitched by former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

The debate will be held two days before Tuesday’s primaries in the big states of Ohio, Illinois, Florida and Arizona. Another string of Biden victories there would give him a nearly unassailable lead over Sanders, a democratic socialist senator from Vermont.