Hopefuls court Iowans on eve of key caucuses
DES MOINES, Iowa — On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Democratic presidential candidates hustled across the state Sunday trying to fire up voters and appeal to those still struggling to make a final choice in the crowded field.
Campaigns and voters acknowledged a palpable sense of unpredictability and anxiety as Democrats begin choosing which candidate to send on to a November faceoff against President Trump.
The Democratic race is unusually large, with four candidates locked in a fight for victory in Iowa and others still in position to pull off strong finishes. Many voters say they’re still weighing which White
House hopeful they’ll support.
“This is going to go right down to the last second,” said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign.
Polls show Biden in a tight race in Iowa with Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang are also competing aggressively in the state.
Democrats’ deep disdain for Trump has already put many in the party on edge about the decision before them. And a series of external forces have also heightened the sense of unpredictability in Iowa, including Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which marooned Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar in Washington for much of the past week.
New caucus rules have also left the campaigns working in overdrive to set expectations. For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will release three sets of results: who voters align with at the start of the night; who they pick after voters supporting nonviable candidates get to make a second choice; and the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate gets.
The new rules were mandated by the Democratic National Committee as part of changes sought by Sanders following his loss to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primaries. The revisions are designed to make the caucus system more transparent and to make sure that even the lowestperforming candidates get credit for all the votes they receive. But party officials have privately expressed concerns that campaigns will spin the results in their favor, potentially creating confusion on caucus night.