Warren and Buttigieg gain momentum as gap widens before Iowa Democratic race

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA » For months, the presidential race in Iowa was a contest between two titans of the Democratic political world, each representing distinct poles of a party struggling to define its identity in the Donald Trump era.

Now, with just three months to go before the caucuses, the ideological debate has remained the same, but the key players have shifted.

For now, former Vice President Joe Biden is being eclipsed by Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, a Midwestern mayor less than half his age who has captured the energy of those looking for the party to move in a more centrist direction. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has seen much of the message that boosted him to political fame in the 2016 primary contest co-opted by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

In polling, enthusiasm and organization, there is now a yawning gap between Warren, Sanders, Biden and Buttigieg and the other 13 Democrats still running for president. A poll taken this past week of likely caucusgoers by The New York Times and Siena College shows the top four candidates locked in a virtual tie atop the field, with the next contenders — starting with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota — at least 13 percentage points behind.

Yet amid a field that once numbered two dozen, it is Warren and Buttigieg who have emerged as coveted fresh faces, riding a surge of momentum. Both have been rising for months — Buttigieg from the obscurity of leading a community of 100,000 people and Warren from early campaign missteps highlighted by her ill-fated decision to release a DNA test designed to combat charges that she exaggerated her Native American ancestry.

The emergence of Warren and Buttigieg has confirmed that the race is entering a new phase as Biden struggles to retain momentum and Sanders attempts to expand his base beyond his core supporters.

“The Sanders people are mostly the same people that were Sanders people in 2016, but there seem to be fewer of them,” said Joann Hardy, the Democratic Party chairwoman in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa. “Some of them have moved on to other campaigns, not necessarily all to Warren. Warren has a wider supporter base than just former Bernie supporters.”