Biden grabs lead in polls, but Dems express doubts
He has a history of flubs and failed campaigns
DES MOINES, Iowa – Nearly a dozen years after being drubbed in the 2008 Iowa presidential caucuses, former Vice President Joe Biden returned to Iowa on Tuesday to present his case that he offers Democrats the best chance of beating President Donald Trump.
Early polls show Biden, who announced his candidacy last week, leads the crowded field of Democratic contenders. He raised $6.3 million in the first 24 hours after launching his campaign, the largest first-day haul of any candidate in the Democratic field.
He’s racked up more than a dozen endorsements from members of Congress and the International Association of Firefighters, the first major labor group to announce its support for a 2020 presidential candidate.
Yet Biden’s entry into the campaign isn’t exactly sending tremors through the Democratic field or the electorate.
“I love Joe Biden, but the candidates we have seen so far have just been ... really good Democratic candidates,” said Scott McCormick, 74, an undecided voter from Ankeny, Iowa, who said Biden isn’t among the top five candidates he’s mulling. “It’s going to be hard.”
Biden’s two previous runs for the White House crumbled early. He withdrew months before the 1988 Iowa caucus after allegations that he plagiarized part of a speech from British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.
He finished fifth in Iowa in his 2008 White House run and ended his campaign days after the caucuses. Biden stumbled early in the campaign when he described then-candidate Barack Obama as the “first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
Biden begins his third presidential campaign needing to demonstrate that he can avoid self-inflicted wounds and offer voters a compelling message that he’s best equipped to compete in battleground states for Obama voters who went for Trump in 2016, said Dennis Goldford, chairman of the political science department at Drake University in Iowa. “Biden has more support among white, working-class Americans, but nevertheless, what is he saying to them?” he said. “That’s not clear yet.”
Announcing his campaign launch in a video message last week, Biden called the upcoming election a “battle for the soul of this nation” and said Trump’s years in office will be recalled as an “aberrant moment in time” for the country.
During campaign events scheduled over the next three weeks, Biden is likely to offer more depth to his policy vision. At his first major campaign rally Monday in Pittsburgh at a union hall, he talked about raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicare and rolling back tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.
“The stock market is roaring, but you don’t feel it,” Biden said.
Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at the moderate Democratic-aligned organization Third Way, said Biden, like all front-runners, entered the race with a target on his back. Kessler, who does not back any candidate, said Biden benefits from name recognition, affection from a sizable portion of the Democratic electorate and his service as President Obama’s vice president.
Kessler said Biden enters the race in a different position from previous favorites to win the nomination.
“He’s not a front-runner the way some Democrats have been in the past – where that person is seen as the hurdle you have to clear, say like Hillary Clinton was in 2016 and 2008 and Walter Mondale was in the 1984 race,” Kessler said. “The pundit class sees him as a weaker front-runner, but I think the support for Biden is a lot more solid than he gets credit for.”
Nathan Teut, 37, of Iowa City said he saw the prospect of a Biden presidency as an extension of Obama-era policies that would be a “stabilizing force” for the country.
In addition to Biden, Teut said, he’s seriously considering South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
“He’s not exciting, but he’d do a good job,” Teut said of Biden.