Biden keeps Iowa lead, but voters unexcited
PROLE, Iowa — Joe Biden is coasting in the national polls. Surveys show him ahead of his Democratic rivals in hypothetical matchups against President Donald Trump. He has maintained a lead in Iowa all summer, despite facing months of controversies over his record and his campaign missteps.
But less than two weeks before Labor Day, when presidential campaigns traditionally kick into high gear, there are signs of a disconnect between his relatively rosy poll numbers and excitement for his campaign on the ground here, in the state that begins the presidential nominating process.
In conversations with county chairs, party strategists and dozens of voters this week at Biden’s events, many Democrats in Iowa described a case for Biden, the former vice president, that reflected shades of the one his wife, Jill Biden, bluntly sketched out Monday. “You may like another candidate better, but you have to look at who is going to win,” she said, citing Biden’s consistent lead in early surveys.
The first ad of Biden’s campaign, released this week in Iowa, flashed some of his positive poll results against Trump on screen, and voter after voter cited those numbers in outlining their support for him, saying that defeating the president was their most urgent priority. That stands in stark contrast to the way voters explain their support for candidates like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who drew 12,000 people to an event this week in Minnesota, Iowa’s northern neighbor, or Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who also draws large crowds and maintains a core base of die-hard fans.
They and others trail Biden in most polls and face plenty of their own skeptics, but they also have followings rooted in zealous support for their ideas rather than the political calculus that many voters describe in assessing Biden.
The former vice president certainly has devoted fans, in Iowa and around the country, and continues to enjoy goodwill and respect from Democratic voters.
But the risks of a campaign argument that is heavily reliant on strong poll numbers, which can be fickle in a tumultuous election, were on vivid display throughout Biden’s trip to Iowa, as voters repeatedly emphasized that their support for him was closely linked to what they perceived as his strength against Trump. It’s a case they make even as polls have shown several other candidates, namely Sanders, Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris of California, running strongly against Trump, and as strategists caution that such theoretical matchups are hardly predictive of an election that’s more than a year away. The polls at this early stage are also partly a reflection of a candidate’s name recognition.
“If there would be a horse leading right now for me, it would probably be Biden, because all the polls indicate he would beat Trump handily,” said Rick Spellerberg, 57, as he waited to see Biden address a group of voters gathered in a gazebo in Prole, a small rural town, Tuesday.
A Monmouth University poll from this month showed Biden leading with the support of 28 percent of likely Iowa caucusgoers — virtually unchanged from the same poll’s results from April.
But Patrick Murray, director of Monmouth’s Polling Institute, who recently spent time in Iowa, said those numbers did not give the full picture of Biden’s support in the state. “I did not meet one Biden voter who was in any way, shape or form excited about voting for Biden,” Murray said. “They feel that they have to vote for Joe Biden as the centrist candidate, to keep somebody from the left who they feel is unelectable from getting the nomination.”