The Democratic Party kicks off its first debate of the campaign next Tuesday.
The debate features Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee.
Clinton, as of the latest from USA Today/Suffolk University Poll, has support from 41 percent of potential Democratic voters.
The gun control issue was re-addressed on Monday on the campaign trail when Clinton emotionally introduced the mother of a victim of the Sandy Hook School shooting.
Clinton proposes that universal background checks be necessary for gun purchases.
“It’s time to act on gun violence. We simply cannot accept as normal 33,000 gun deaths a year,” Clinton tweeted Monday.
Sanders is next in line in the polls after Clinton with 23 percent of potential Democratic voters. Sanders is currently Clinton’s biggest competition.
For 40 years Sanders has been proposing the same political message. He’s expected to have no problem getting his points across and keeping a firm ground at the first debate.
In just three months, Sanders has raised more than $5 million dollars through online donations instead of spending money on commercials and receiving easy money from Super PAC’s.
“I welcome Secretary Clinton’s discussion of the economy and look forward to an issue-oriented debate as to which set of policies will best represent the working families of our country,” said Sanders in an official release from his campaign website, berniesanders.com.
“Aggressive,” has been a term used to describe Sanders, according to a one word poll by USA Today.
Vice President Joe Biden has not announced whether or not he is going to join the 2016 campaign.
Biden was invited by the DNC to participate in the debate, but he declined. By late October, he will affirm his political plans for 2016.
The other three candidates totaled just two percent of the nationwide Democratic field, while 14 percent of voters were undecided.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, wasn’t satisfied with the limited number of debates this year for the Democratic Party.
“We are the Democratic Party, not the Undemocratic Party,” O’Malley declared to the Democratic National Committee in August. “If we are to debate debates, the topic should be how many, not how few.”
Former Virginia Senator Webb released a statement in Nov. 2014 saying our country needs to “shake the hold of these shallow elites on our political process.”
Chafee as the least likely candidate to be 2016 Democratic Nominee received some help from late night talk show host Conan O’Brien when he campaigned for Chafee to reach one percent.
“I’m not saying we should get him elected,” O’Brien explained on his show on Aug. 19. “I’m personally not going to vote for him. But I think we should get him on the board so he’s not humiliated. It seems like the nice thing to do.”
CNN and the Nevada Democratic Party in Wynn, Las Vegas will host the Democratic debate on Oct. 13 at 6 p.m.