WINNERS: 

Elizabeth Warren: With her standing in the polls dwindling, Warren seemed to throw the gloves off at the debate and go all-in as the Mad Max to Bernie’s Imperator Furiosa. The Berserker Armor to Bernie’s Guts. The Tim Gutterson to Bernie’s Raylan Givens. The Garrincha to Bernie’s Pelé. The Time Wizard to Bernie’s Baby Dragon. The Joe Biden to Bernie’s Barack Obama (?)

Bernie Sanders: Wow, it’s almost like the self-evident moral urgency of his message, combined with the obvious smarminess of the opponents who decry it as excessive or unambitious, makes such a good case for him that millions of Americans are rallying to him or something

Joe Biden: An improved debate showing and second place in the Nevada caucuses may have revitalized the former vice president’s ailing campaign. Maybe he’ll even end up being the vice-winner

John Delaney: After getting seven votes in the initial round of the Nevada caucuses, he somehow rose to 16 votes in the realignment. Looks like it’s time to dust off the campaign bus, ’cause ole John Delaney ain’t done quite yet

This tweet: Not related to the debate or the caucuses or anything, it just slaps

 

Absolute freaking miracles: Even more off-topic, but Ryan Newman walked unaided out of the hospital less than 48 hours after this 

 

Bill de Blasio: God damn

 

Michael Bloomberg: Give him credit, he did a great job of uniting the Democratic candidates. It was in the service of taking him down in the debate, but you can’t win them all

The Huffington Post: God DAMN

LOSERS:

Michael Bloomberg: You know, if I were about to appear in front of a national televised audience for the first time in my campaign after spending unprecedented amounts of my own money to get this far, I think I would spend some time rehearsing my answers and practicing responding to criticism so that I didn’t look utterly shocked any time another candidate brought up my record

Amy Klobuchar: You know, I’ve been giving her a pass because she can tell a joke, but she has this really off-putting thing going on where she smirks condescendingly while telling the audience why your dream of a better country is totally unfeasible and you’re dumb for even thinking of it

Michael Bloomberg: Then again, maybe this is what Bloomberg wanted all along. The man actually spent 400 million dollars of his own money for the privilege of standing in front of a firing squad

Moderate Democrats: After spending years sure that the growing number of nonwhite Americans would inevitably deliver them insurmountable majorities in legislatures across the country, Bernie Sanders putting in the effort to actually reach out to and organize those people has reminded the more conservative wing of the party that it’s still cripplingly afraid of power and the responsibility that comes with it

Michael Bloomberg: If he was indulging some degradation fetish, first of all, gross, violation of consent on the part of all those watching, but he did get his money’s worth, at least. Like, look at this amazing screenshot I took as Elizabeth Warren landed an attack on him

Pete Buttigieg: As long as we’re drawing parallels to Berserk, I’ve come to realize that Pete has the same superficial charm and charisma and unshakeable, almost sociopathic lust for power as Griffith. Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a Behelit too

Michael Bloomberg:  But back to the real star of the Losers section. This was me in the debate, every time the broadcast showed Bloomberg’s face as one of the other candidates tore into him

Tulsi Gabbard: At time of writing, she’s the only candidate to have lost every single one of her first-round voters through realignment. She went from 200 to a big fat goose egg. Even Michael Bennet held on to three of his voters, and he dropped out of the race a whole [checks notes] wait, holy crap, not even two weeks ago?! Christ

Michael Bloomberg: And that makes me think that he just somehow thought his extraordinary wealth could, like, one-for-one substitute for preparation or charisma or an unquestionable past or whatever. When Dave Portnoy, the rich white shithead who heads Barstool Sports, is tweeting stuff like this about you, a fellow rich white man…

 

…maybe your judgment wasn’t very good

The Eventual Nominee: All this infighting and sniping at each other is sure to tear the Democratic Party apart and hamstring the eventual nominee in the general election, just like what happened in the similarly crowded and surely more vicious Republican primary in 2016, in which the party base utterly failed to overcome its reservations about Donald Trump and ultimately sent him to a crushing defeat against Hillary Clinton