History will be made at Tuesday’s debate in Ohio

Tuesday's Democratic primary debate in Westerville already is assured of making history.

The 12-candidate field is the largest televised presidential debate ever, topping the 11 Republicans gathered four years ago in the Reagan Presidential Library.

And the three-hour match-up starting at 8 p.m. will become the first held under the shadow of a presidential impeachment inquiry, which the Democratic dozen all support.

Analysts say those unprecedented dynamics generate several key questions about how the debate will go down:

• Will the rivals of front-runner Joe Biden be able to attack him for the ethically dubious scenario of his son being hired as an executive with Ukrainian energy company Burisma while Biden was vice president and point man on Ukraine, without giving aid and comfort to President Donald Trump?

• Will any of the other 11 Democrats bring up health issues of Bernie Sanders, last quarter's leading fund-raiser who suffered a heart attack earlier this month and was forced to suspend campaigning?

• Will candidates on the literal fringes of the debate, eager to meet increased polling thresholds to qualify for next month's contest in Georgia, fire any unexpected bombshells at a front-runner just to get attention?

But beyond such speculation lies a highly pragmatic question: Are these Democratic candidates too liberal to carry a state like Ohio or others in the Midwest necessary for the party's nominee to win in 2020?

Ohio stands as the nation's top presidential bellwether, backing the winner of all but two presidential campaigns (1944, 1960) since the 19th century. And while Trump won the Buckeye State by 8 points in 2016, his margins were much smaller in nearby heartland states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Over the past several months, Trump and the Republicans have tried to attach the "socialist" label to all of the Democrats. A Washington Post poll in July showed why: When respondents were asked about a generic contest between Trump and a candidate viewed as a socialist, the president was preferred by a 6-point margin -- unlike matchups with Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other leading Democrats.

When central Ohio was chosen as the Democratic debate site for October, state GOP press secretary Elizabeth Giannone quickly released a statement saying "The 2020 Democratic candidates can debate in Ohio all they want, but Ohioans have made it clear that their radical ideas are not welcome here."

Last week, Ohio Republican Chairman Jane Timken said, "While President Trump is focused on the booming economy, Democrats keep going further and further left, which does not resonate with Ohioans.?Democrats are pushing an agenda that alienates Ohio workers. They are spouting ideas like a government takeover of the health-care industry or the Green New Deal, which as the AFL-CIO said would 'cause immediate harm to millions of workers.' These ideas don't play in Ohio."

Among the "far left" issues backed by at least some in the Democratic field that are cited by Republicans:

• Taking away the ability of Americans to own private health insurance.

• Decriminalizing border crossings that are now illegal.

• Mandatory buybacks of guns like those often used in mass shootings.

• Free college and loan forgiveness that would cost billions.

• Embracing a Green New Deal that not only includes ambitious environmental goals such as achieving net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions in 10 years, but also a federal job guarantee with "a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security" as well as "high-quality health care" and "affordable, safe and adequate housing."

John Green, longtime director of the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, said another example is Sanders' proposal to tax all billionaires so heavily that they no longer would be billionaires.

"A plausible suggestion is increasing taxes on rich people, which could be very popular in Ohio. But that is very different than eliminating billionaires," Green said.

"There are a lot of Americans who will never be billionaires, but they would really like to be billionaires."

Same with Beto O'Rourke's proposed mandatory buyback of many so-called assault rifles -- which provided one of the most attention-grabbing moments of last month's debate in Houston, when the former Texas congressman said, "Hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47."

"There's seemingly some movement on what most Americans want in gun restrictions," Green said.

"But then Beto comes after these rifles. That's a frightening thing to many Americans."

On Thursday night, O'Rourke said that religious institutions should lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage: "There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone ... that denies the full human rights or the full civil rights of every single one of us."

Even a seeming throwaway suggestion from California Sen. Kamala Harris to ban Trump from Twitter could give voters pause, Green said.

"I could just imagine the average American saying 'I don't like those tweets, but you can't ban someone from Twitter.'"

However, the rush to the left is rooted in political reality, Green said: "Everybody's playing to the base and they have to, because that's where they'll get the poll support, the finances and the people on the ground."

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown says arguments over whether Democrats are too liberal for Ohio or the Midwest are foolish.

"It's not liberal or conservative, it's whose side you're on. And Trump is clearly not on the side of workers," said Brown, who strongly considered running for president himself while emphasizing a "dignity of work" theme.

"The vision of every one of these Democrats is to support workers," he said.

Kyle Kondik, an Ohio native who now is director of communication for the University of Virginia's Center on Politics, said by email he will be eagerly watching Tuesday to see how Biden is treated by the other Democrats during the debate, sponsored by The New York Times and CNN.

"The one wild card is whether any of the other Democrats attempt to attack Biden along the lines Trump has done -- not on the specific allegations about Biden, his son, and the prosecutor in Ukraine (which are bogus), but more broadly about members of Biden's family seeming to profit on the former vice president and senator's name," said Kondik, author of The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President.

"This is a dangerous path because it could be taken by Trump as validation, but Biden is also still the leading candidate in the field, and all the other candidates have an interest in him falling off," he said.

Green, noting health concerns about John McCain in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, said the medical condition of a candidate, such as the 78-year-old Sanders or 76-year-old Biden, is considered fair game.

"When people think about the presidency, one of the baseline thresholds for doing the job is you have to be healthy," he said.

Analysts agreed that the three candidates in the middle of the stage -- Biden, Sanders and Warren, who have been climbing in the polls -- are sure to take hits from the lesser-known Democrats desperate for air time.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar acknowledged as much in a fund-raising email last week: "The Democratic primary is entering a 'sudden-death' round because the DNC raised the threshold again for the November debate."

Candidates such as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who came close to suspending his campaign due to financial pressures, and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, who challenged Biden's memory in the last debate, will be looking for any opening to score.

The same goes for the remaining candidates on stage: South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and businessman Andrew Yang, as well as the two who weren't in the last debate in Houston: Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and businessman Tom Steyer.

The debate in suburban Columbus on Tuesday will be broadcast live on CNN at 8 p.m. Eastern.

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