13 big takeaways from the second night of the 2020 Democratic presidential debates in Detroit

In the week prior to the second round of Democratic primary debates, Harris rolled out her own healthcare plan. She sought to strike a middle ground between a Medicare for All system, without a role for private insurance, and more moderate plans to introduce a public option and build on the ACA, which Biden has advocated for.

Harris' plan would implement a government-run healthcare system over 10 years that would include a role for private insurance companies to compete within it, similar to the current Medicare Advantage program.

Biden argued in the debate that Harris' 10-year timeline was too drawn out and depended on her successor implementing it, adding, "Secondly, it will require middle-class taxes to go up, not down. Thirdly, it will eliminate employer-based insurance. And fourthly, what will happen in the meantime?"

In response, Harris defended her plan by arguing, "First of all, the cost of doing nothing is far too expensive. Second, we are now paying $3 trillion a year for health care in America. Over the next ten years it will probably be $6 trillion. We must act. My plan is immediately allowing people to sign up and get into coverage."

While other progressives like Gillibrand, Gabbard, and De Blasio took Harris' side in arguing for Medicare for All, Bennet — the other centrist on stage besides Biden — pushed back and argued that introducing a public option is a faster way to get to universal coverage

"I believe we should finish the job we started with the Affordable Care Act with a public option that gives everybody in this audience a chance to pick for their family if they want private or public insurance," Bennet said, arguing that Medicare for All "would make illegal employer-based health insurance in this country and massively raise taxes on the middle class to the tune of $30 trillion as Joe Biden said."'

In response, De Blasio accused Bennet of "fearmongering" with his warning about tax increases.

Bennet was also the only candidate on stage to oppose decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings.

The second debate night featured a historic number of candidates of color. Booker discussed the issue of race in his opening statement, denouncing President Donald Trump's racist and racially-charged attacks on Democrats of color in recent weeks.

In his opening statement, Booker said, "Donald Trump from Charleston, to Baltimore, to the border is using the tired old language of demagogues, of fear mongers and racists to divide our country against itself. We know who Donald Trump is, but in this election, the question is who are we as a people?"

Later in the debate, Inslee became the first presidential candidate to directly call Trump "a white nationalist."

And Castro also denounced Trump's comments and laid out a number of steps he would take to improve cities like Baltimore, including expanding access to education and enacting policies to desegregate school districts and neighborhoods.

Under the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president and Castro as Housing and Urban Development Secretary, the federal government oversaw 800,000 deportations.

After moderator Don Lemon asked Biden if high levels of deportations would continue under his administration, Biden took the opportunity to attack Castro, saying, "I found that the secretary, we sat together in many meetings, I never heard him talk about any of this when he was the secretary."

Castro swiftly hit back at Biden, saying, " It looks like one of us has learned from the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't" to loud applause.

When Biden defended Obama's attempts at immigration reform and said that any immigrant with a PhD should be let in, Booker accused him of "playing into what the Republicans want, to pit some immigrants against other immigrants ... this should be a country that honors everyone."

"First of all, you can't have it both ways. You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can't do it when it's convenient and dodge it when it's not," Booker said when Biden tried to deflect a question about his role in the Obama administration's harsh immigration policies.

In the first debate in June, Yang only spoke for 2 minutes and 38 seconds, finding himself overshadowed by higher-polling candidates. But he turned things around in Wednesday's debate, giving sharp and unique responses to economic policy questions.

"I'm building a coalition of disaffected Trump voters, independents and libertarians and democratic and Progressive. I'm best to suited to beat Trump. How to win in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania," Yang said in making a case for his electability against Trump.

Yang earned himself huge applause in arguing for a new way to measure economic prosperity.

"The problem is that so many people feel like the economy has left them behind... The way we win the election is we redefine economic progress to include the things that matter for people in Michigan and all of us. Like our health, well-being, mental health, clean air and clean water ... if we change the measurements for the economy to our own well being we'll win this election."

"This is a crisis in our country because we have treated issues of race and poverty and addiction by locking people up and not lifting them up. Since the 1970s, every crime bill, major and minor, has had his name on it," Booker said in criticizing Biden over his record.

"We have a system right now that's broken. And if you want to compare records and I'm shocked that you do, I am happy to do that. Because all the problems that he is talking about that he created, I actually led the bill that got passed into law that reverses the damages," Biden said.

Biden tried to hit back at Booker over discriminatory policing practices in the city of Newark, where Booker served as mayor from 2006 and 2013, but Booker was prepared.

"There's a saying in my community that you're dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavor. You need to come to the city and see the reforms we put in place," Booker said.

"This is a great example, the other day, the Department of Justice not going after the officer that used a chokehold that was prohibited by NYPD. He did that 11 different times. Eric Garner said he couldn't breathe. He knew what he was doing and yet he has not been brought to justice. That police officer should be off the street," Castro said.

Earlier, the debate had been disrupted by protesters chanting at de Blasio to fire the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who the federal Department of Justice declined to prosecute.

While Harris is branding herself as a progressive prosecutor, she's faced scrutiny over her record as San Francisco's district attorney and California's attorney general, which Gabbard brought to light on the debate stage.

"I'm concerned about this record of Senator Harris. She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," Gabbard said at the debate.

Gabbard continued: "She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California, and she fought to keep cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way."

Gabbard's attack knocked Harris back on her heels, who tried to defend herself by citing her efforts to reduce incarceration rates and claiming she opposed the death penalty, despite having defended it in court in 2014.

In the first Democratic primary debate in June, Harris stood out and saw her poll numbers rise for her targeted attack on Biden's record on race.

But in the July debate, Harris found herself on the defensive both in the debate over her healthcare plan, and on her record on criminal justice issues, which left her vulnerable to attacks from Gabbard but meant she couldn't feasibly go after Biden on the same issue given her own history.

Between stumbling over her words in sparring with Biden over healthcare and Gabbard's direct hit over her highly controversial record on criminal justice, Harris struggled in the second debate.

Lower-polling candidates including De Blasio, Gabbard, Gillibrand, and Inslee — who are not guaranteed spots in the fall debates — took shots at the higher polling candidates in an effort to boost their profiles.

De Blasio attacked Biden over healthcare and criminal justice, Gabbard skewered Harris on her criminal justice record, Inslee slammed Biden's 2002 vote in favor of the war in Iraq, and Gillibrand took Biden to task on his previous writings on women in the workplace, leaning into her reputation as a warrior for women's rights.

Gillibrand took Biden to task over an op-ed he previously wrote in which he expressed that women working outside the home "would quote create the deterioration of family," a sentiment Biden said he "never believed."

Biden vigorously defended his record on women's rights, saying the op-ed was written in the context of opposing a tax credit policy, and citing his own experience being a single father and being married to Jill Biden, an educator.

"I wrote the Violence Against Women Act. I was deeply involved in the equal pay amendment. I came up with the It's On US proposal, to see that women are treated decently on college campuses. You came to Syracuse with me and said it was wonderful," Biden said to Gillibrand.

Immediately afterward, Harris attacked Biden over his long-time support for the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal programs like Medicare and Title X from covering abortion care except in rare cases, accusing him of being opportunistic in only recently opposing the amendment.

"I wrote the legislation making sure that every single woman would have the opportunity to have healthcare paid for by the federal government, everyone. That could no longer stand. I support a woman's right to choose."