South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has risen to first in a flagship poll of first-in-the-nation Iowa. And there’s a four-way battle between Buttigieg, Biden and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the second early state, New Hampshire, creating a new dynamic of heightened uncertainty in this crowded debate.

Democrats respond to impeachment hearings

Wednesday’s headline-grabbing impeachment inquiry testimony from Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who repeatedly confirmed that the Trump Administration ultimately wanted an investigation of Biden in return for military aid, was used as a point of departure by Warren to speak against the corruption of the American political system — and swipe at her rivals.

“How did Ambassador Sondland get there?” Warren asked rhetorically. “You know, this is not a man who had any qualifications except one. He wrote a check for a million dollars. And that tells us about what's happening in Washington, the corruption. How money buys its way into Washington. You know, I raised this months ago about the whole notion that donors think they're going to get ambassadorships on the other side.”

Warren said she pledged to not allow that to happen, but noted none of her colleagues followed her lead.

Unlike Warren, Sen. Amy Klobuchar wouldn’t commit to voting to remove Trump is the House impeaches and there’s a trial in the Senate. Klobuchar drew a distinction by saying Trump should be impeached, but she needed to hear all the facts first before deciding whether to remove him from office.

Sen. Kamala Harris simply called Trump “a criminal in the White House” while Sanders pivoted from the topic.

“We cannot simply be consumed by Donald Trump. Because if we are, you know what? We're going to lose the election,” Sanders said, recounting the plight of people without health insurance or a roof over their heads.

“What the American people can understand is that the congress can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time,” Sanders said. “In other words, we can deal with Trump's corruption but we also have to stand up for the working families of this country.”

Joe Biden touts his electability

Biden fumbled his first answer, arguing that the Democratic nominee will need to be able to defeat Trump next fall and go into states like Georgia and North Carolina to help Democrats regain control of the Senate.

“That’s what I’ll do,” Biden said. “You have to ask yourself up here who is most likely to be able to win the nomination in the first place — to win the presidency in the first place. And secondly, who is most likely to increase the number of people who are Democrats in the House and in the Senate.”

Then he turned to impeachment, insisting that he learned during House Democrats’ hearings that Trump doesn’t want him to be the nominee. “That’s pretty clear,” he said. “He held up aid to make sure that while at the same time innocent people … are getting killed by Russian soldiers.”

Biden added that he also learned that Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t want him to be president. “So I’ve learned a lot about these hearings early on from these hearings that are being held,” he said, before closing with the suggestion that he is the one candidate who can help Democrats keep control of the House, win back the Senate and oust Trump from the White House.