there is certainly a lot of excitement in this room tonight and no doubt around the country. we re back in the wynn hotel in the battleground state of nevada for the first democratic debate of the 2016 campaign. i m anderson cooper. thanks for joining us. we ve welcomed the candidates on stagement they re in place at their podiums. i want to quickly explain the ground rules tonight. as the moderator, i ll ask questions, follow-ups and guide the discussion. i ll be joined by juan carlos lopez and dana bash and don lemon who will share questions from around the country. each candidate gets one minute to answer questions and 30 seconds for follow-ups and rebuttals. i ll give the candidates time to respond if they ve been singled out for criticism. our viewers should know that we have lights that are visible to the candidates to warn them when time is up. i want the candidates to introduce themselves to our audience. each candidate has two minutes to introduce themselves. let s begin with
[ applause ] there is certainly a lot of excitement in this room tonight and no doubt around the country. we re back in the wynn hotel in the battleground state of nevada for the first democratic debate of the 2016 campaign. i m anderson cooper. thanks for joining us. we ve welcomed the candidates on stage, and they re in place at their podiums. i want to quickly explain the ground rules tonight. as the moderator, i ll ask questions, follow-ups and guide the discussion. i ll be joined by juan carlos lopez and dana bash and don lemon who will share questions from around the country. each candidate gets one minute to answer questions and 30 seconds for follow-ups and rebuttals. i ll give the candidates time to respond if they ve been singled out for criticism. our viewers should know that we have lights that are visible to
today s debate is taking place in the battleground state of nevada. a sit that we want to president obama in 2012 with 52 percent of the votes. now current polling clinton taking the lead and sanders with 34 and joe biden having 12 percent and not nen the race. the rest of the field not registering. i am joined by the democratic party chair for the state, and we have been asking the viewers today and do you want them on that debate stage tonight? look i think in nevada we welcome any person that wants to get in the race and if the vice president wants to get in the debate, we re good with that. we have no confirmation on whether he wants to be there and throw the hat. your state and south carolina
you will, tamron, basically saying we have more work to do. he laid out what he has accomplished in terms of recovering the auto industry, improving the economy, getting osama bin laden, but also said, look, there s still a lot more work to be done. he repeated that phrase over and over again. essentially saying, give me four more years, and we will continue to get the work done that we started. we expect them to make a similar speech here when he arrives in this key battleground state of nevada. i m told that eva longoria will be introducing him. she has, of course, been one of his big surrogates. she s helped rally latino voters. that is going to be key if he is to win on tuesday. so we expect him to arrive here shortly and to continue with his closing argument, essentially that he would like four more years to continue what he started. kristen, thank you very much. and up next, former new mexico governor and president obama supporter bill richardson will join us live.
promising exactly that, hope and change in washington. now governor romney is using that line to rally his supporters. john roberts is live for us in atlanta this morning. good morning, john. reporter: good morning to you, martha. go ahead. martha: that is an interesting argument. reporter: one you will hear a lot of today. governor romney in the battleground state of nevada which president obama won 41-43 in 2008. the numbers are a lot closer. here is why. mitt romney has going for him, the housing crisis he will talk about that. a lot of unaffiliated residents a 7% mormon population and much better ground operation. however working against him, a large hispanic population, big union representation, far more registered democrats and harry reid s big political machine. the campaign is acknowledging that he not made good on his promises specifically pointing to the statement he made in the