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Iowa caucuses: Can any of these people stop Donald Trump in 2020?

Democrats have rarely been so anxious about the electability of their candidates

Andrew Buncombe
Chief US Correspondent
Thursday 30 January 2020 09:35 GMT
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Democratic debate: Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg spar over campaign funding

The hopefuls include a former vice president getting on in years, and an even older man who frequently shakes his fist. There is a college professor turned banking industry watchdog turned senator, and the gay ex-mayor of a town of 100,000 people. There are billionaires, millionaires, and a man who wants to give everyone a guaranteed basic income of $1,000-a-month.

But can any of them unseat Donald Trump?

As Democrats gather in Iowa to hold their first actual ballot of the 2020 election cycle, the party has rarely appeared so anxious.

This is not the first time that Democrats have worried about the “electability” of a candidate. They did so in 2004, for instance, over the French-speaking, windsurfing John Kerry, who some worried was a bit too posh, and who ended up losing to George W Bush, who was equally “blue blood” but worked to project an earthy, plain-spoken manner.

With so many Democrats across the country aghast at the presidency of Donald Trump, however, and the pressure to oust him all the more intense, scrutiny of the contenders has been unprecedented. It it also why so many candidates – more than two dozen – have entered the race.

It was not supposed to have been like this. In the months of shock and despair endured by Democrats in 2016 when Hillary Clinton received almost 3 million more votes than her opponent and yet was still denied the White House, many assumed some rare glitch had upset the system and would swiftly be corrected.

As the probe by Robert Mueller into alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia’s election interference gathered pace, many thought that the president could soon be impeached. And the results of the 2018 midterms – in which women and suburban voters, who had backed the president but were now turned off by his angry tweets, enabled the Democrats to regain the House – led some to assume his defeat would swiftly follow.

And yet Trump remains, more resilient than any might have guessed.

He has been impeached by the House, yet looks certain be cleared by the Senate. His approval rating of about 41 per cent remains a stable line on the graph, as flat and unchanging as the landscape of Iowa. Unemployment is at a record low, and the economy seems like it will remain solid at least for the next 12 months. Indeed, a poll for ABC News/Washington Post suggested that opinion of his handling of the economy has improved in the past three months.

That poll signalled that with nine months until election day, Americans believe Trump is the slight favourite, with 49 per cent expecting him to win and 43 per cent predicting victory for his challenger. In short, the Democrats have a fight on their hands.

“Only time will tell. What we do not know, with voter suppression and without the protection of the Voting Rights Act [gutted by Republicans and the Supreme Court], is the extent to which Republicans are going to interfere in the election,” says Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University in New York.

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A poll published this week by Quinnipiac University, suggests that the Democratic field is being led by Joe Biden on 26 points, followed by Bernie Sanders on 21, Elizabeth Warren on 15, Michael Bloomberg on 8, Pete Buttigieg on 6, Amy Klobuchar on 7, and Andrew Yang on 3.

In Iowa, a predominantly white, largely rural midwestern state that critics of its first-in-the nation status point out is unrepresentative of the country, the lead is held by Sanders, the senator from Vermont, who has long identified as a Democratic socialist.

Depending on which poll you examine, he is followed by either Biden or Buttigieg, who are both positioned as centrists. Then comes Warren, another progressive, and Klobuchar, another centrist.

Victory in Iowa would be a huge boost for any candidate’s campaign, helping them springboard into the next votes in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and then “Super Tuesday” on 3 March, when more than a dozen states hold their primaries.

Super Tuesday will also be the first to judge the non-traditional campaign of Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, who has largely ignored the first four voting states, and is instead spending tens of millions of dollars of his own money in battleground states, such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, that will likely determine the outcome of the election.

The challenge for whoever becomes the Democratic candidate, said Greer, is to be progressive enough to energise the party’s base, while being “moderate” enough not to scare off independents and disgruntled Republicans, who might be seeking an alternative to Trump.

That juggling act has been at the centre of the tensions between the various candidates. Warren and Sanders, with their policies of universal healthcare and a transition to a green economy, are seen by some in the party as being too progressive. Meanwhile, the likes of Biden and Klobuchar are seen as too establishment and unexciting to ensure a big turnout.

Buttigieg has positioned himself as a bridge between the two wings: progressive on some issues, but not threatening, and with a new face that many in the party like. Others point out that he is the first openly gay candidate of any major party, which could be a hindrance, and that his apparent lack of support among voters of colour will be a major problem.

Michael Fraioli, a Washington-based Democratic strategist, says the party should not take anything for granted. Yet he remains optimistic that the likes of Biden or Klobuchar could take on and defeat the president.

“One thing you can bank on, is that there is a woman on the ticket,” says Fraioli. “Either as the candidate, or the vice-presidential candidate, there will have to be a woman on the ticket. Otherwise, we might as well pack up and go home.”

Fraioli credits Trump for having more political skills than many had anticipated, and that all the major decisions taking during his first three years – the tax cuts, the appointment of two conservative justices to the Supreme Court, the hard line on immigration, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – had been done to satisfy his base.

“He has remained at 43 per cent or whatever it is, this whole time. His base is not going anywhere,” he says. “I am starting to think he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.”

Trump also brings to the fight the benefit of being the incumbent. Only a handful of US presidents seeking re-election have failed to achieve it, the most recent being George HW Bush, who was beaten by Bill Clinton in 1992 at the end of his first term.

In addition, those who hope the impeachment issue will dent the president’s chances are likely to be disappointed. A poll by Rasmussen Reports found that only 27 per cent of likely voters thought the ongoing drama will hurt Trump. In fact, 31 per cent said it would likely help him.

“In the end, impeachment will simply harden the party lines on both sides – though the lines are already a lot stronger than Trump’s border wall,” says Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

“By November it won’t be much of a factor. Why? Trump will have generated another hundred controversies, and impeachment will seem like ancient history.”

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