CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Things could get ugly here Sunday night.
The fourth Democratic debate, which is also the first one of 2016 and the last one before voters finally weigh in, is shaping up to be the most heated and consequential face off yet.
With just 14 days to go before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, polls have unexpectedly tightened between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, making the caucuses and New Hampshire’s Feb. 8 primary — and thus the entire nominating contest — look for the moment like a virtual dead heat. And as the gap between the candidates has closed, the fighting between them has intensified.
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Even though the candidates have faced off three times before, Sunday night’s debate, hosted by NBC News and the Congressional Black Caucus, may give voters the purest look at the differences between the candidates thus far.
The two previous debates were overshadowed by late-breaking news that came in the day before candidates met onstage (the Paris terror attack in November and the Democratic data breach in December), while the first debate in October came before the candidates had begun to draw sharp contrasts with each other.
An apology from either candidate seems less likely this time. In the previous two weeks, the Clinton and Sanders campaigns have exchanged fire on Wall Street regulations, electability, guns, health care, and whether a new Sanders TV ad qualifies as negative.
Here are four things to watch:
Sanders on defense
Sanders has yet to release the details of a tax plan he needs to fund his proposed single-payer health care plan, and his campaign has given conflicting answers about when it would come. The Vermont senator has been saying since at least July that it would come “soon,” and in recent interviews said he would present it before the Iowa caucuses, but the moderators and Clinton are likely to press him for details.
RELATED: High stakes for Clinton and Sanders going into Sunday’s debate
Sanders worked to remove another piece of baggage the night before the debate, when his campaign announced he would support a bill to revoke the legal immunity granted to gun makers by a 2005 bill for which Sanders voted. Clinton has been hammering her rival for that vote, accusing him of doing the bidding of the National Rifle Association.
Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta suggested in a tweet that Clinton would not give Sanders a pass on what he called a “debate-eve conversion.” Expect the words “flip flop” to come up a lot as Clinton tries to paint Sanders as typical politician.
Gun fight









