Democratic presidential candidates debate tonight in New Hampshire

While the allegations that Sanders’ campaign improperly exploited a breach in the Democratic National Committee voter database kicked off the third Democratic presidential debate in New Hampshire, it wasn’t the issue the defined it. Candidates spent most of the night engaged in an extensive conversation about foreign policy and national security. The incident sparked fierce reactions from Sanders and Clinton staffers, a sharp shift from what until now had been a relatively civil Democratic primary, particularly compared to the unpredictable Republican race.

He says, “I want to apologize to my supporters”.

“It was the first real flare-up we’ve seen in the Democratic side”, said Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

Sanders’ campaign fired a worker involved in the data breach.

That’s an implicit knock on his top rival Hillary Clinton, a former first lady and secretary of state.

The DNC decision to let Sanders use his own database came after the national party was barraged with outraged messages from grassroots supporters of Sanders.

Clinton and Sanders both favored gun control legislation, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley touted his record of pushing gun safety laws in Maryland.

Trump has proposed building a border fence with Mexico and barring Muslims from entering the U.S. O’Malley is drawing a contrast by saying the US faces dangers from terrorists but also from abandoning its values in its response.

Charlie Neibergall/AP Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is the far-and-away front-runner in the contest for the nomination, polls show.

“The fact that data was accessed inappropriately is completely unacceptable”, she said in a statement early Saturday. For them, it was yet another piece of evidence that the Democratic Party’s most Establishment-minded leaders are not-so-subtly pulling for Clinton as the nominee.

The final Democratic debate of the year is underway, and the candidates are delivering opening statements.

The skirmish is likely to dominate Saturday’s debate, held in Manchester, N.H. and televised by ABC News, which politicos had otherwise expected would be low on drama. The Sanders campaign accused the Democratic National Committee of aiding the Clinton campaign when it put a freeze on Sanders’ campaign using even its own data from the Internet site while the committee investigated. “They admitted they cut off another campaign’s proprietary information”. Late Friday Sanders sued the DNC saying they overreacted.

He said the Sanders team had learned of such glitches months ago and told the DNC that campaign data, including Sanders material, was being made visible to other campaigns.

The issue never went to court. There were more than 214,800 people who signed an online petition to the DNC circulated by Sanders’ campaign.MoveOn.org collected another 250,000 petition signatures and Democrats for America collected 100,000.