Slate's Jim Newell says the first thing you got to know about tonight's Democratic presidential

debate is that it is Joe Biden's to lose. Still, you're starting to see a lot of the campaigns

who thought he would be gone by now just because of, you know, his history of, shall we say,

verbal flubs, you know, catching up to him.

But it really hasn't happened.

And I think they're starting to be confused about what exactly can be done about that.

And the answer might very well be nothing.

Since Biden entered the race this spring, the other candidates have surged and plummeted in

the polls.

But the whole time, they have been orbiting Biden.

He is consistently the top choice of about 30 percent of Democratic voters.

So when the 10 qualifying candidates walk on the stage in Houston tonight, the real question

is whether any of them are going to start generating their own gravitational poll.

The reason this debate is different from the others, that we finally have Elizabeth Warren

and Joe Biden on stage together.

He's been a little shaking in the debate.

She's been very strong in the

debates. It's sort of the last untested variable where, okay, well, maybe if Warren's on the stage

with Biden, maybe that will be the thing that shakes his support. But Biden's support, it runs deep.

I mean, Joe Biden, if you look under the hood a little bit, like he has very strong support

from African Americans who are going to be very important in South Carolina and a lot of

the Super Tuesday states.

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