So what is Harris doing in Iowa?
Senator visiting pivotal election state this week
The last time Kamala Harris was in Iowa, the little-known San Francisco district attorney trudged through snow to knock on voters’ doors and delivered boxes of pizza to caucusgoers as a volunteer for presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
More than a decade later, she’s returning to the politically pivotal state this week as one of the highestprofile senators in the U.S. — and taking a notable step toward following in Obama’s footsteps as she considers running for president herself.
Harris will campaign for midterm candidates in and around Des Moines on Monday and in
“It’s not always easy to talk about complex issues, but (Harris) is able to break down the complexity and do it with grace. ”
eastern Iowa on Tuesday, boosting Democrats up and down the ballot while giving Iowa voters their first opportunity to size her up in person.
“The question for Iowans is can you be as comfortable at a five-star hotel as a union hall or a VFW lounge or a school gymnasium,” said Paul Tewes, a Democratic strategist who ran Obama’s 2008 caucus campaign in the state. “Personal interactions are everything there.”
On the campaign swing, Harris will headline rallies on college campuses and meet voters in urban and rural areas. Iowa is a key state for Democrats this election season, and Harris is scheduled to appear alongside candidates including Cindy Axne, a Democrat running in a highly competitive House race, and Deidre DeJear, the party’s nominee for secretary of state, who’s hoping to become Iowa’s first black statewide elected official.
DeJear, 32, said in an interview that Harris has been an inspiration during her own campaign. The night before her secretary of state debate, DeJear watched a video of Harris’ 2016 U.S. Senate debate against former U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez to prepare.
“It’s not always easy to talk about complex issues, but she is able to break down the complexity and do it with grace,” DeJear said. “Even when she’s stating the facts, you know she’s stern but also approachable — she unapologetically is who she is.”
The first-time candidate, who has hit the trail with other national figures, including potential presidential candidate and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, said she hopes questions about 2020 didn’t drown out attention on important down-ballot races like her own.
But for Harris, just stepping foot in the Hawkeye State is sure to fuel speculation about her future. She told reporters recently that she would “seriously take a look at things” after the November midterms. A CNN poll released last week put her in third place among possible Democratic White House contenders, after former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of
— Deidre DeJear, the Democratic nominee for Iowa secretary of state
Vermont.
Harris has assiduously avoided most of the early presidential primary states, including Iowa, for the past two years, campaigning only close to home in Nevada.
That changed Friday, when she stumped for Democrats in South Carolina. She visited Ohio and Arizona this month, she’s in Wisconsin today, and she plans to hit Georgia and Florida as well. She’ll spend the weekend before Election Day getting out the vote back in California.
Iowa will always play a key role as the first contest of the presidential primary campaign, but California is expected to have largerthan-usual influence in 2020, in part because of our early voting calendar. The Golden State primary is set for March 3, 2020, and millions of mail-in ballots will be sent to voters starting Feb. 3 — the same day Iowans are scheduled to go caucus.
That means Californians will be casting their primary votes even as the other traditional early states go to the polls. In this year’s June primary, more than 67 percent of all California ballots were mailed in.
It’s a dynamic that could help Harris and other potential candidates hailing from California.
“I think you’re going to see candidates starting to spend time in big states earlier with the changed calendar, especially California,” said Ben LaBolt, a former Obama spokesman and a Democratic strategist in San Francisco.
Still, “you could alienate voters in Iowa and New Hampshire if you’re not spending enough time on the ground and going into people’s kitchens and backyards,” he added.
Harris isn’t the only California Democrat mulling a bid for the Oval Office.
East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell has visited Iowa 12 times since President Donald Trump took office, most recently this month. Swalwell plans to campaign in New Hampshire, aides said, although that trip could get
pushed as his wife, Brittany, approaches her due date for the couple’s second child.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer and high-profile lawyer Michael Avenatti also have visited Iowa at least once this year.
Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said there was a lot of excitement among party activists and especially young voters about Harris’ arrival.
“While the 2020 question always lingers over national folks’ visits to the state, I know everyone here is focused on trying to get us back to blue in 2018,” he said.
Harris has some connections to Iowa on her staff. Lily Adams, her communications director, served as Hillary Clinton’s communications director in the state during the 2016 primary, and Harris sent another staffer from her office to help Iowa congressional candidate Abby Finkenauer this year.
But Harris’ only firsthand political experience in Iowa came from a week of volunteering for Obama’s 2008 campaign.
She left California just after Christmas 2007 and spent the first days of the new year canvassing for the freshman senator, she recalled in a 2016 blog post.
The night before the caucus, Harris was assigned to visit senior-living apartments with mostly AfricanAmerican residents. Knocking on doors, she met one woman in her 80’s who flatly told Harris, “they not gonna let him win,” she wrote.
Harris pitched her on the diverse coalition volunteering for Obama, she remembered, insisting that he had a real chance.
The elderly woman never took the chain off her door.
But the next evening, as Harris brought pizza to caucusgoers voting for the future president, she saw her again — “sitting in the corner all by herself, wearing a fox stole over her winter coat.”