2016 US Presidental Election - Democratic Presidential Candidates Hillary Clinton & Bernie Sanders One-on-One Debate Thursday February 04,2016

US Democratic Presidential Candidates Hillary Clinton (R) and Bernie Sanders(L) participate in the MSNBC Democratic Candidates Debate at the University of New Hampshire in Durham on February 4, 2016.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders went head to head on Thursday in their first televised duel as they fight for the Democratic White House nomination ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

The 90-minute debate at the University of New Hampshire in the small college town of Durham comes three days after Clinton clinched the narrowest victory in Iowa caucus history against Sanders and five days before the country's first state primary in the election process

Bernie Sanders claimed a moral victory in Monday's Iowa vote, winning 49.6 percent to Clinton's 49.8 percent, in the first vote of the 2016 election cycle



Bernie Sanders, the 74-year-old independent senator from neighboring Vermont, leads Clinton by 20 points in the latest New Hampshire polls

 Both appealed to struggling Americans with Clinton presenting herself as the candidate who can actually deliver and Sanders earning the first big cheer of the night by alluding to himself as a fresh voice.

"I want to imagine a country where people's wages reflect their hard work and we have health care for everyone," Clinton said.

"I'm fighting for people who cannot wait for those changes and I'm not making promises I cannot keep."

Asked why he thinks he can deliver his sweeping economic and health reforms, Sanders quipped: "I haven't quite run for president before," to cheers, alluding to Clinton's previous bid for the White House.