Who can topple Trump? Dems’ electability fight rages in Iowa

DES MOINES, IOWA >> The urgent fight for the Democratic presidential nomination was raging across Iowa on Sunday as the party’s leading candidates and their allies fanned out across the state to deliver closing arguments centered on the defining question of the 2020 primary: Who is best positioned to defeat President Donald Trump?

Liberal firebrands Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders debated electability from dueling rallies 200 miles apart as they scrambled to reach as many voters as possible before being forced to return to Washington for Trump’s impeachment trial. With Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses just eight days away, it was unclear when the two senators would return.

“We gotta win. That’s a huge part of this,” Warren told several hundred people in Davenport, on the eastern edge of the state. “And also, can we just address it right there? Women win. The world changed when Donald Trump got elected.”

She added: “I know how to fight and I know how to win.”

Sanders and a collection of high-profile surrogates made an equally aggressive case in the rural community of Perry in central Iowa, having spent much of the weekend highlighting the candidate’s ability to energize a “multi-generational, multi-racial, working-class” coalition.

“The reason we are going to win here in Iowa is we have the strongest grassroots movement of any campaign,” Sanders said.

Sanders, perhaps more than Warren, has emerged as a central figure in the electability debate as new polls showed him gaining strength with the Feb. 3 caucuses nearing. Sanders’ strength sparked a growing sense of concern from his more moderate Democratic rivals, who fear that the 78-year-old Sanders is too radical to beat Trump in a one-on-one matchup this fall.

Stoking those fears, Trump’s campaign on Sunday teased a general election attack against Sanders. The Vermont senator had spent much of the day before campaigning alongside New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the president’s team sent out an email with the title, “Socialist invasion.”

“Why is radical socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spending so much time campaigning for Bernie? Because he’s the godfather of her extreme agenda and socialist vision for America,” the email said.

Before Sanders took the stage Sunday, leading surrogate and filmmaker Michael Moore defended democratic socialism and warned that more attacks were coming.

“You’re going to hear a lot now. The knives are sharpened,” Moore said.

One of the establishment favorites, Joe Biden, was appearing alongside U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, the latest in a growing list of local elected officials backing the former vice president.

Asked whether some party leaders are growing nervous about Sanders’ rise, Axne said: “Oh, my goodness I should really hope so.”

The youngest candidate in the race, 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg, was also playing up warnings about Sanders in his closing arguments. With several polls showing Sanders in a strong position, Buttigieg’s campaign sent an email to supporters Saturday with the subject line: “Bernie Sanders could be the nominee.”

“We need a nominee who can galvanize our country,” the email said. “The Trump presidency will end one way or another, and when it does we need a president who can rally this country around a vision for the next generation. We know that candidate is Pete.”

Speaking to reporters at a subsequent event, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, stopped short of directly criticizing Sanders, but noted that “we are getting into the heart of the competition.”