Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Dems hit Iowa again as race remains murky
Paper backs Warren; Sanders leads in poll
DES MOINES, Iowa — Democratic presidential candidates roared back into Iowa on Saturday touting fresh endorsements, critiquing their rivals and predicting victories in the caucuses that will launch the process of deciding who will challenge President Donald Trump.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she was “delighted” to pick up an endorsement from The Des Moines Register. The state’s largest newspaper called the Massachusetts Democrat “the best leader for these times” and said she “is not the radical some perceive her to be.”
But Warren’s progressive rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, predicted victory in Iowa and campaigned alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Joe Biden appeared for the first time alongside Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, the latest in a growing list of local politicians backing the former vice president’s candidacy. And Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, sought to position himself a Washington outsider above the partisan fray.
But as the candidates set out to make their best case to voters, the volatility of the race was evident. Several candidates began their day in Washington, sitting as jurors in
Trump’s impeachment trial. They will have to return to Capitol Hill early next week as the trial continues.
And there is no clear front-runner despite the fact that many candidates have now spent more than a year courting Iowans. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday showed Sanders with a slight edge in Iowa. But several polls show Biden, Buttigieg and Warren among the front-runners.
“There’s still plenty of time for movement,” said Kurt Meyer, chairman of the Tri-County Democrats in northern Iowa. “Every part of the ground game counts.”
Still, Sanders returned to Iowa exuding confidence. Hundreds of supporters filled the municipal auditorium in Ames, and additional voters crowded an overflow room.
Earlier in the night, he told voters in Marshalltown that he had an “excellent chance to win here in Iowa” and that his is the only campaign that can weave broad support from voters.
“I believe that our campaign, our energy, our grassroots movement, our agenda is the approach that will speak to working people who, in many cases, have given up on politics,” Sanders said. “I think we will resonate with them. I think we have in the past, I think we will in the future.”
Biden scored the endorsement of the Sioux City Journal, which called him “the candidate best positioned to give Americans a competitive head-to-head matchup with President Trump” and said he would be best at attracting “independents and disgruntled Republicans.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar campaigned in Muscatine, Iowa, but won a key newspaper endorsement in New Hampshire, which hosts the firstin-the-nation primary a week after Iowa’s caucuses. The Union Leader picked the Minnesota Democrat, saying any realistic challenger to Trump would need “a proven and substantial record of accomplishment across party lines, an ability to unite rather than divide, and the strength and stamina to go toe-totoe with the Tweeter-in-Chief.”