Day 2 of Democratic debate features more early front-runners

The second night of the first Democratic primary debate here featured more early front-runners for the party's presidential nomination to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020.

Thursday night's 10-Democrat match-up included four of the five front-running candidates in early polls: former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Senator Kamala Harris of California, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg of Indiana, reports Xinhua news agency.

They shared the stage with Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, author and activist Marianne Williamson, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Debate moderators are expected to raise such topics as economy, healthcare, education, immigration, climate change, and foreign policy, similar to those for the first group of participants on Wednesday night.

According to debate rules, each candidate will have 60 seconds to answer questions and 30 seconds for rebuttals. There are no opening statements, but each candidate will have one minute for a closing statement.

The Wednesday night debate featured Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan.

Together, 20 candidates qualified for the first primary debate for either scoring at least 1 per cent support in three qualifying polls or receiving donations from at least 65,000 unique donors.

The two-night debate, hosted by NBC News, MSNBC and Telemundo at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, was the first of a dozen that the Democratic National Committee had planned for the party's primary.

The second debate is scheduled for July 30-31 in Detroit, Michigan.