Dem candidates stumble into chaotic autumn

Impeachment inquiry, other factors affect race

WASHINGTON — A Democratic presidential race that had been largely static through the summer has tumbled into a chaotic fall, shaped by unpredictable events and the impeachment inquiry surrounding President Donald Trump.

Less than four months before voting begins, front-running candidates are facing urgent questions about their ability to challenge Trump, prompted by a health scare for Sen. Bernie Sanders, an uneven response by former Vice President Joe Biden to the president’s efforts to tie him to the impeachment inquiry and nagging questions about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s electability. Lower-tier candidates are struggling just to be heard.

Progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren are surging in fundraising and drawing support from a wide swath of voters, according to polls, but face opposition from moderates who question whether now is the time to start the kind of sweeping economic and societal reforms they are pushing. It’s a concern some moderates say has only increased against the backdrop of impeachment.

“The divisions we have in the country threaten the health and stability of our democracy. President Trump has fractured so many norms,” former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said in an interview. “Like a patient getting over an illness or injury, we have to first heal the nation’s divisions and re-establish our norms before we have the needed strength to successfully embrace and implement an array of big ideas.”

Vilsack, a longtime friend of Biden’s, has not endorsed anyone in the 2020 race.

Warren has energized voters with a menu of detailed policy proposals; she raised more than $24.6 million in the most recent quarter. That’s turning her into a target for candidates who see her calls for overhauling health care and rebalancing wealth in America as outside the mainstream.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has focused in particular on Warren’s health care plan, the Sanders-authored “Medicare for All” single-payer system that Buttigieg describes as a “my-way-or-thehighway approach.”

But it’s more than the policy Buttigieg is arguing against.

“We have to be able not only to thrill a debate audience or a Twitter following but actually make something happen, which tells us that having the smartest policy is only half the battle when it comes to what will actually make a difference,” Buttigieg said in an interview.

Biden, 76, stands as the strongest obstacle to Warren and Sanders, fundamentally opposed on policy and pitching a more conciliatory approach to governing.

The former vice president was already facing questions about whether he was out of step with the party’s activist liberal base and up for the challenge of taking on Trump before he got pulled into the impeachment inquiry, which centers on Trump’s push for Ukraine to investigate the former vice president and his son.

Biden backers contend the fact that Trump has appeared focused on trying to take down Biden allows the former vice president to strengthen his electability argument by previewing what a one-onone race with the president would look like.

“He’s able to go out there every day and make this Biden vs. Trump argument,” said John Anzalone, a pollster for Biden.

Buttigieg said there is no secret strategy for those candidates seeking to break out during this intense fall stride toward the first votes other than engaging in a “respectful and robust” debate of ideas.

“Where there’s an important difference, people need to understand that,” he said.

Marcio Jose Sanchez The Associated Press Former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks during the Power of our Pride Town Hall in Los Angeles on Thursday.