Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
After shaky start, Democrats looking to N.H. for traction
Candidates hit the campaign trail, but Iowa mishaps keep party on edge
CONCORD, N.H. — Democratic presidential candidates, fresh off their latest debate, plunged Saturday into a final weekend of campaigning before the New Hampshire primary, with two of them looking to score a clear victory after their photo finish in Iowa and with three others hoping to scramble back into contention.
Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, who essentially tied in Iowa, were scheduled to campaign across the state as new polls showed Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., gaining on Sanders, the senator from Vermont.
Former Vice President Joe Biden focused on Manchester, N.H., even as his campaign struggled to regroup from a fourth-place finish in Iowa.
During Friday night’s televised debate at St. Anselm College, Biden all but conceded defeat in New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday, predicting he would “take a hit” there as he did in Iowa.
“I’ve been the front-runner all along; I’ve had that target on my back from the beginning,” he said in a post-debate interview on ABC. “The fact is, in New Hampshire I’m the underdog.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota tried to capitalize on a strong debate showing in which she offered some of the night’s most pointed criticism of Buttigieg’s inexperience while attempting to elbow her way from the back of the pack.
“She made the case for her optimistic, pragmatic plans for America — and why she’s our best chance to defeat Donald Trump,”
her campaign said in a fundraising email touting Klobuchar’s debate performance.
And Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has been outpaced by Sanders among the party’s progressive voters, is trying to broaden her appeal by casting herself as the candidate best equipped to unify the party’s left and center.
Warren did not get as much air time during the debate as the top three male candidates did. She also had only one full-scale campaign event scheduled for Saturday in advance of an all-candidate cattle call at a Democratic Party dinner in the evening.
The party is on edge over technical issues that marred last week’s Iowa caucuses, as well as lower-than-expected turnout in the leadoff state.
“It’s a hard start,” said Laura Keeler, a 35-year-old from Concord, N.H.
“We’re capable of shooting ourselves in the foot,” warned Jim Hodges, an ex-South Carolina governor who supports Biden in the 2020 race. Hodges is among those who predict that Sanders, who is a self-described democratic socialist, would be a weak general election candidate.
Biden is now facing a money crunch, a staff shake-up, and a looming challenge from billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg. The former New York City mayor isn’t competing in the early states, but he is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in later contests.
Some party leaders privately view Sanders as a risky nominee in swing states, and for House and Senate candidates in places such as Colorado and Arizona. Sanders is attuned to that concern and has made an appeal for party unity a central part of his pitch in recent weeks.
Buttigieg, the youngest candidate in the race at 38, has made a case for generational change, but there are questions about his experience and his appeal to minority-group voters who are the backbone of the Democratic Party. He struggled in Friday’s debate when challenged on the incarceration rates for black residents of South Bend, where he was mayor for eight years. It’s the highest electoral office he’s held.
New Hampshire is the next chance for the candidates to project strength. Expectations are particularly high for Sanders, who won the state by more than 20 percentage points in 2016 over Hillary Clinton, the eventual nominee. Sanders struggled in the later, more diverse states, and he has spent the past four years courting voters and community leaders in those places in hopes of avoiding a repeat.
The prominence of Iowa and New Hampshire has long been criticized by Democrats who argue that two small and predominantly white states set the tone for the nominating contest. That criticism skyrocketed after last week’s caucus failures. But no Democrat has become the nominee without winning at least one of the first two states since Bill Clinton in 1992.
After the Iowa mishaps, Bloomberg’s team announced plans to double the $300 million it already has spent on television advertisements.
“I don’t think that, quite frankly, anyone that has not won one of those two states, other than Mike, will go on to be the nominee,” said Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg’s campaign manager.
Bloomberg is courting Biden donors — for support, not money — as well as moderate lawmakers who worry that Sanders or another liberal would put their House seats in swing districts at risk. In the past week, Bloomberg’s team has announced endorsements from Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, who was also being pursued by Biden, and Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan. Both flipped Republican-held House seats in 2018.
Bloomberg’s eye-popping ad spending has caught the attention of President Donald
Trump, who is closely following the Democratic race. The president regularly quizzes advisers about the strengths and weaknesses of his possible opponents, according to aides.
The economy, which can be a bulwark or an anchor for a president, continues to grow. An employment report released Friday showed 225,000 jobs created in January.
Trump remains reviled by most Democrats, and many in the party believed that heading into the election year, that disdain for Trump would be a chief motivator for its voters. Yet the Iowa caucuses showed no sign of heightened enthusiasm.
“We have a president who isn’t merely unconventional or challenging institutions and elites, or coloring outside the lines. He’s unmoored,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said. Yet, Coons added, he is “very aware” that Trump could win reelection “with these economic numbers at his back, all as millions of Americans grow numb to his behavior.”
“The obsession with concocting the Frankenstein to take on Trump has confined us all,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a longtime party strategist who advised Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is not aligned with any candidate this time.
Palmieri spent the past couple of weeks on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire observing the candidates up close, including the president, who staged a large
rally in Des Moines before the caucuses. She came away deeply concerned about her party as it grapples with how to counter a norm-shattering chief executive who relishes political combat.
“We are letting Trump drive our process and getting ourselves all tangled up in who might be the best person to foil him,” Palmieri said. “That became really clear to me just being in Iowa. The voters were so lost. They didn’t have any orientation, no grounding. … They felt paralyzed by this choice.”
“We spend too much time chasing whatever foolishness Trump throws out there, and he’s masterful at it,” said Cornell Belcher, a veteran Democratic pollster. “This has got to be an election fundamentally about Democrats’ vision for bringing the country together and solving the big problems that confront us. And if a Democrat can do that, a Democrat can have a good chance of cobbling back together and even expanding the [Barack] Obama coalition — and that will beat Trump.”
New Hampshire Democratic officials are predicting a large turnout in Tuesday’s primary, which could also serve as a moment for the party to hit the reset button after a ragged start to the election year.
“People are understanding just how important it is to get this right,” said Maria Cardona, a member of the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee.