Dems fan out to N.H., Iowa; Weld takes to ABC air

Presidential candidates spent Sunday courting voters in states with influential early roles in the 2020 primary.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., set the briskest pace Sunday, meeting supporters in Rochester and Manchester, New Hampshire. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., also was campaigning in the Granite State, and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-calif., was due there on Monday.

In the Midwest, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-minn., paid a visit to Iowa.

Asked by a voter at an event in Manchester about so-called “Medicare-for-all,” Booker said passing such a bill in the Senate would require the difficult task of rounding up 60 votes to prevent a filibuster. Otherwise, he said, “we’ve got to be ready to take the pathways” that get as far as possible toward universal health insurance coverage.

Liberal activists have called on Democrats to consider eliminating the Senate procedural tool to make ambitious legislation easier for a future Democratic president to pass. Booker, however, has spoken in favor of preserving the filibuster.

Meanwhile, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, the first Republican to move toward a primary challenge against President Donald Trump, said he plans to campaign on what he calls Trump’s reckless spending and lack of preparation in helping workers shift to jobs in a more automated economy.

Weld, who announced Friday that he was forming an exploratory committee for president, said on ABC’S “This Week” that Trump is racking up $1 trillion a year in debt that will crush taxpayers.

Weld said the government should be preparing workers to shift to jobs in “artificial intelligence and robotics and drones and machine learning and autonomous vehicles.”

But Weld added that policymakers aren’t paying attention to that because “they’re so busy with divisiveness and trying to make everyone feel awful.”