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Two of Mr. Buttigiegs rivals pushed back more or less gently, channeling in a tentative way the frustration across the Democratic field with the rise of a 37-year-old mayor with no experience in national government. Mr. Booker, a onetime wunderkind mayor of Newark, described himself as the other Rhodes scholar mayor on this stage perhaps his most pointed expression of feeling overlooked in the race.

But it was Ms. Klobuchar who most effectively pivoted from her past criticism of Mr. Buttigieg, whom she has described as benefiting in the race from being male, into a forceful plea to the country to elect a female president.

Women are held to a higher standard, otherwise we could play a game called name your favorite woman president, Ms. Klobuchar said, brandishing one of her favorite lines from the campaign trail: If you think a woman cant beat Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day.

The Democrats met just hours after the administrations ambassador to the European Union, Gordon D. Sondland, offered perhaps the most damaging testimony against Mr. Trump yet in the House impeachment proceeding. The inquiry, centering on whether Mr. Trump linked American financial and political support for Ukraine to a promise to investigate Mr. Biden, has worried some Democrats about the former vice presidents viability in a general election.

Yet that is only one factor that is making an already volatile race more fluid than ever.

Since the debate last month, former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts has entered the primary contest, and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York has taken steps to do the same. They have been lured into the campaign in part over their concerns about the leftward drift in the party, and also because there is still no clear front-runner with just over two months until the Iowa caucuses. It remains far from certain that they will be able to catch on so late in the race, but both have made clear that they are trying to win over more moderate voters.

If there is an opening for them, it is because Mr. Biden has not been able to consolidate support from center-left Democrats. Voters and donors from this wing of the party are uneasy with him mainly because of his lackluster fund-raising and campaign performances, and less because of Mr. Trumps false claims that he acted improperly with Ukraine when his son Hunter was on the payroll of an energy company there.

More broadly, though, the race remains unsettled because Democratic voters are splintered across racial, ideological and generational lines. Mr. Buttigieg surged in Iowa and New Hampshire in recent weeks, taking the lead in a new Des Moines Register-CNN survey of Iowa caucusgoers. But he has not made similar gains beyond the two heavily white states that kick off the nominating process.

Excerpt from:
Democratic Debate Has Early Focus on Trumps Conduct and Impeachment - The New York Times