Amy Walter: “Yes, 25 candidates are running for the nomination. But, only five to six of them are serious contenders for the nomination. The RealClearPolitics average shows that five candidates combined—Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg—take between 71 percent to 76 percent of the vote in national and early state polling. Nothing that happened in these two debates changed that math.”

“Senator Cory Booker and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro performed well in their Wednesday night debate. But, strong enough to break into the double digits—or overcome any of those five? I don’t see it.”

Andrew Yang claimed his microphone was “not on” a few times when he attempted to jump in during Thursday night’s Democratic debate, The Hill reports.

Said Yang: “There were also a few times, FYI, where I just started talking, being like, ‘Hey, I want to add something there,’ and my mic was not on.”

He added: “And it’s this sort of thing where, it’s not like if you started talking, it takes over the conversation. It’s like I was talking, but nothing was happening. And it was like, ‘Oh fuck.’ So that happened a bit too.”

Joe Biden’s campaign dismissed reports that staffers are “freaking out” about his performance during the second round of Democratic presidential debates on Thursday night, The Hill reports.

A source told reporter Olivia Nuzzi “that internally, field staff says the campaign-organized debate watch parties in early voting states have been ‘awkward’ and that Biden isn’t playing well to those who attended.”

She added: “He isn’t listening to his debate prep and he’s ‘set in his ways,’ the source close to the campaign tells me.”

Mark Lukasiewicz: “Eric Swalwell asked Joe Biden to pass the torch. Kamala Harris just took it.”

Jonathan Bernstein: “I saw a number of analysts flag the liberal positions that some candidates took as general-election vulnerabilities. Perhaps! But it’s not exactly a secret that candidates tend to play to their parties during the nomination fight and then moderate their positions when they face the larger electorate. So I’d guess that such concerns are overblown. And in a world where Republicans will call even very modest Democratic proposals ‘socialism,’ it’s not clear that supporting somewhat more liberal policies will change anyone’s perceptions.”

“That said, I’ve always thought Sen. Bernie Sanders is an exception. It’s normal to back away from a campaign promise, claim to be misunderstood or generally modify specific policy positions for the general election. Sanders just isn’t in a position to do that, and I doubt he has any interest in it. Perhaps that’s to his credit, but it makes him a very vulnerable potential nominee nonetheless. Political-science research is uncertain as to whether ideological extremism harms presidential candidates, but the truth is, there hasn’t been a comparable major-party nominee in the last century.”

The second of two Democratic presidential debates starts at 9 p.m. ET. It will be broadcast on NBC News, MSNBC and Telemundo and live-streamed via NBCNews.com.

The debate features most of the top poll leaders in the race: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris.

Other participants — who are barely registering in the polls — include Kirsten Gillibrand, Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper, Eric Swalwell, Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson.

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