US election 2020: Senators launch blitz in last hours to Iowa caucus

The three Democrat presidential hopefuls who have been trapped in Washington are on a last minute blitz through Iowa.

Bernie Sanders with Autumn Spence and her 6-month daughter Charlotte at a rally in Indianola, Iowa, on Sunday. Picture: AP

The three Senate Democrat presidential hopefuls who have been trapped in Washington by the impeachment trial are on a last-­minute blitz through Iowa to make up lost ground as polls predict a tight battle in the nation’s first Democratic caucus.

Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar flew straight from Washington to Iowa to hold back-to-back rallies and town hall meetings across the midwest state ahead of Tuesday’s (AEDT) caucus. A fourth senator in the race, Michael Bennet, is near last in the polls.

The Iowa caucus, which sets the agenda for the Democrat presidential race, is notoriously unpredictable, but polls suggest it will be fought out between the 78-year-old left-wing Senator Sanders and 76-year-old moderate and former vice-president Joe Biden.

The latest RealClear Politics average of polls shows Senator Sanders leading with 23.8 per cent followed by Mr Biden on 20.2 per cent, Pete Buttigieg on 15.8 per cent, Senator Warren on 14.6 per cent and Senator Klobuchar on 9.6 per cent.

The need to be in Washington during the impeachment trial was a harsh blow to senators Warren and Klobuchar, who missed out on opportunities to boost their standing at a time when polls suggest they are slipping further behind the frontrunners.

Senator Warren raced straight from congress on Friday night (US time) to Iowa where she appeared at a local Des Moines brewery and posed for selfies with a cheering crowd. She also launched three new TV ads across the state, including one that portrays a former Trump voter who claims he has turned to Senator Warren and says “People say a woman can’t win, I say nonsense, I believe a woman can beat Trump”.

Senator Klobuchar, from the midwest state of Minnesota, has never reached double-digit support in polls but she has told rallies she believes she is benefiting from a last-minute “surge” from voters.

The leading candidates have stepped up their criticism of Senator Sanders after polls showed him overtaking frontrunner Mr Biden in Iowa and in national polls.

Mr Biden has questioned whether Senator Sanders is really a Democrat given his socialist views on many topics. “We have a different view on a whole lot of things,” Mr Biden said.

Former South Bend, Indiana, mayor, Mr Buttigieg, who at 38 is the youngest candidate, has accused Senator Sanders of rigid and inflexible policies.

Mr Buttigieg has also hit back at Mr Biden’s gibes about his relative lack of experience.

“The vice-president is suggesting this is no time to take a risk on someone new. I am suggesting this is no time to meet a fundamental new challenge with a familiar playbook,” he told supporters.

A stand-in for Senator Sanders while he was in Washington, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was widely criticised by Democrats when she encouraged a rally’s booing of Hillary Clinton. The boos were in response to Mrs Clinton’s comments last week that nobody liked Senator Sanders.

Ms Tlaib, a member of “The Squad” of Democrat congresswomen, later issued a qualified apology. “I know what is at stake if we don’t unify over one candidate to beat Trump and I intend to do everything possible to ensure that Trump does not win in 2020.”

During the final days of campaigning in Iowa, Mr Biden has told supporters that he is the candidate most likely to defeat the president in November.

“They don’t want me to be the nominee. I wonder why,” he said. “Because they know if I am, we are going to beat him.”

Mr Biden’s final campaign ad in Iowa says that Mr Trump’s time in office “stops with us right here, right now”. It portrays the bloody protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 and media coverage of tensions with Iran. “These are the stakes of this election,” Mr Biden says in the ad. “The next president’s going to inherit a divided nation and a world in disarray.”