Everything you need to know about the 2020 race in Iowa today
February 1, 2020DES MOINES — The Democratic candidates are back, and they’re trying to make up for lost time.
Trapped in D.C. this week at the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, the senators who are competing the hardest in Iowa — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar — are here for the weekend and will be blanketing the state.
That means Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg will no longer have the campaign trail to themselves. And they won’t just be competing for attention with the returning senators — an army of surrogate campaigners is also scheduled to arrive this weekend.
Klobuchar, who represents neighboring Minnesota, is bringing in the home-state cavalry — she’ll get assistance from her state’s governor, lieutenant governor and state auditor.
With the caucus just days away, local Iowa endorsements continue to trickle in — in a race this close, the campaigns will take any advantage they can get. But the real goal this weekend will be generating energy and momentum for the final sprint to Monday.
The campaigns will get a better sense of where things stand Saturday evening at 8 p.m. Central time. That’s when the results of the final Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll will be announced.
Here’s everything you need to know about Saturday’s strategy, where the campaigns are and what they are doing just days before the first votes of 2020 are counted.
Our reporters will be fanned out across the state following all the top campaigns — so check back throughout the day as we update this story with key moments and new developments on the campaign trail.
Pete Buttigieg
Pete Buttigieg's aggressive town hall schedule — basically fitting in as many events as the laws of time and physics allow for — will continue through Saturday. He's scheduled to stop by five cities, criss-crossing 200 miles across eastern Iowa.
Buttigieg's campaign believes that the more Iowans see the mayor, the more they'll be open to him. His intense schedule illustrates that theory, and he does have that edge over his Senate competitors, who have been kept out of the state until this weekend.
Buttigieg continues to train his fire on Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, and I'll be watching how and in what ways that heats up, and when and how his rivals hit back — if at all.
Starting on Thursday and continuing Friday, Buttigieg took his criticisms from implicit to explicit. On Biden, Buttigieg pushed back on a TV ad the vice president's campaign is currently running, urging Iowans not to "take a risk" with their vote. Buttigieg said in Council Bluffs on Friday: "I would argue that what history has taught us in a moment like this, we cannot take the risk of trying to fall back on the old playbook."
Buttigieg also took a light jab at Michael Bloomberg for self-financing his bid for president, adding that in 2020, "Someone can literally buy their way into competition," but he didn't name the former New York City mayor.
—Elena Schneider
Elizabeth Warren
Finally.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is expected to be back in Iowa Saturday for the first time this week after the Senate impeachment trial kept her off the trail. Even so, it is still unclear what time Warren will arrive or which events she is going to attend. Her campaign has scheduled two rallies with campaign co-chair Rep. Ayanna Pressley in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, and another at night in Davenport with former presidential candidate Julián Castro.
The campaign’s surrogates are also criss-crossing the state Saturday, including a new name: Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who will be launching several Get Out To Caucus canvass kick-offs.
I’m interested to hear Warren’s message for the final weekend when she’s on the stump. She was the first Democratic candidate to launch her exploratory committee and Iowa was her first stop. She hired a big team in the state earlier than all of her rivals (though Bernie Sanders now has the biggest staff). And she has spent more days in Iowa than any other state.
She has worked the state hard for a year -- so what is her message on this final weekend? Does she change anything up, especially with so many Democrats saying they are undecided? Her polling has been steady, but Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden have surpassed her in the most recent polls.
—Alex Thompson
Amy Klobuchar
Able to jet back to Iowa as senators break from the impeachment trail for the weekend, the Minnesota senator is scheduled to crisscross the Hawkeye State in search of an upset on caucus night. Klobuchar’s risen steadily in Iowa over the last month, reaching 10 percent support in FiveThirtyEight’s Iowa polling average.
Heading into a weekend packed with events, Klobuchar picked up her 18th endorsement from a sitting Iowa lawmaker on Friday, state Rep. Dave Williams. And in a boost to her closing argument, she nabbed the endorsement of the Republican mayor of Indianola, who is switching parties to caucus for the Minnesota Democrat.
“Those of you who know me, and there are several of you here in the community that know me, would be surprised I would be up here stumping for a Democratic candidate,” Kelly Shaw said at a Friday surrogate event, according to Iowa Starting Line. “I do come from the Republican side, having worked in the House of Representatives at the U.S. level for a Republican who has long since moved to the lobbying ranks.”
Klobuchar will hold four “get out the caucus” events on Saturday in towns from the far western reaches of the state to the east. And she’ll do it again on Sunday before ending in a town just outside of Des Moines for a Super Bowl watch party.
—Laura Barrón-López
Bernie Sanders
With no impeachment proceedings Saturday and Sunday, Bernie Sanders is finally free to hop on a plane and campaign in Iowa over the weekend after being trapped in Washington for days.
The campaign’s big event Saturday is a Vampire Weekend concert in Cedar Rapids. Two members of the so-called “Squad,” Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, will also be stumping for him, along with Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Pramila Jayapal.
The Sanders campaign’s hope is that his traveling tour of musicians and other celebrities in the last week before Iowa will drive up turnout and excitement, especially among young people.
On Thursday, a few DNC members gave him a gift on that front: POLITICO broke the story that a half-dozen of the party insiders are talking about stopping Sanders if he continues to surge by allowing superdelegates to vote on the first ballot at the convention. They admit it’s unlikely to happen; what it’s guaranteed to do is anger his base and inspire donations.
—Holly Otterbein
Joe Biden
Joe Biden no longer has the place mostly to himself.
His competitors, including chief rival Bernie Sanders, return to Iowa this weekend to make up for lost ground after having been stuck in D.C. for the president’s impeachment trial.
Biden has been attempting to seize on the advantage he and a few others in the field have had while Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bennet and Sanders were stuck in Washington.
The last few days, Biden has made a point of doing local media interviews and answering questions from national media along the rope lines, often ensuring he’ll get coverage in several media markets. He’s done that with the help of Rep. Abby Finkenauer, who represents northeastern Iowa, and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.
Today, Biden visits North Liberty, Cedar Rapids and Waterloo. Waterloo is a rare Iowa city that has a sizable African American population, a demographic that has been supportive of Biden.
—Natasha Korecki
Source: https://www.politico.com/