Joe Biden knows the attacks will be coming. The question for the former vice president in Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate will be whether he handles them in a way that restores confidence to his anxious supporters.

With his party turning against itself on core issues, Biden will be forced to defend his record as nine eager rivals fight to knock him from his front-runner perch in the increasingly combative primary.

Biden's advisers said he expects to face pointed questions about race in particular, having stumbled in the opening debate when confronted by California Sen. Kamala Harris over his record on school integration. The pair will be joined onstage by a second senator of color, Cory Booker of New Jersey, who in recent days seized on Biden's decades-old support for criminal justice laws that disproportionately hurt minorities. The advisers said that while Biden hoped to focus on President Donald Trump, he's ready to fight back against Harris and his other Democratic opponents.

Wednesday's debate comes 24 hours after another set of 10 Democrats debated, fiercely at times, over the direction of their party. In that encounter, liberal firebrands Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren faced intense criticism from lesser-known moderates who warned primary voters that a sharp shift to the left on health care and other key policies would make it all but impossible to defeat Trump.

That same dynamic will be on display Wednesday night — only in reverse.

Biden, who leads virtually all early polls, will be considered the premier moderate on stage. In addition to Harris and Booker, his more progressive opponents include New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Obama administration housing chief Julián Castro, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

While the first primary votes won't come for six more months, there is a sense of urgency for the lower-tier candidates to break out. More than half the field could be blocked from the next round of debates altogether — and possibly pushed out of the race — if they fail to reach new polling and fundraising thresholds implemented by the Democratic National Committee.

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