A few hundreds of people squeezed into a Junior high school gym on Saturday night to watch Klobuchar one last time before they decide which candidate to support.
By OMRI NAHMIASFormer Vice President Joe Biden speaks as South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Senator Bernie Sanders all listen during the Democratic U.S. presidential candidates 2020 campaign debate at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, U.S., December 19, 2019(photo credit: MIKE BLAKE/ REUTERS)
DES MOINES – Iowa is gearing up for the 2020 caucus, a vote that in the past five election cycles predicted who would become the Democratic nominee. All six leading candidates: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, and Amy Klobuchar held rallies here over the weekend in a last-minute effort to win the prestigious first state.According to an average of recent polls, Sanders holds a narrow 3% advantage over Joe Biden, who is in second place.With a population of just over three million, Iowa does not usually draw national attention. But once every four years, on the eve of the first vote of the primary season, it becomes the focal point of the nation’s politics. Thousands of volunteers, campaigners and journalists book nearly all the city’s hotel rooms and gather here to watch as the caucuses unfold. That Iowa is the first state to vote also brings all leading candidates to campaign here dozens of times, even in front of small crowds, which provides Iowans the opportunity to speak directly to them before they make up their minds.And while leading contenders such as Biden or Sanders are fighting Iowa’s 49 out of 3,979 Democratic delegates mostly for morale, for underdogs such as Yang and Klobuchar, this could be a “make or break” moment.According to the caucus rules, each candidate needs to cross a 15% threshold to be considered as a viable. Klobuchar and Yang are currently receiving the support of 10% and 4%, respectively.A few hundred people squeezed into a junior high school gym on Saturday night to watch Klobuchar one last time before they decide which candidate to support.Christie Hines, a retired IT worker from Des Moines, told The Jerusalem Post she decided to support Klobuchar because she believes the Minnesota senator has the best chance to beat President Donald Trump in red states.“Amy is able to get some of those voters because in her home state of Minnesota, when she has run for the Senate, she has been able to win in districts that Donald Trump won,” Hines said. “Some of these states that are really in play, like Wisconsin and Ohio and Pennsylvania, she can appeal to people in those states. Whereas, I think some of the other democratic candidates might not be able to do so.” Asked if she believes Klobuchar could be a viable candidate, Hines admitted that she was concerned at first, but now she thinks Klobuchar would pass the threshold.“But if she for some reason is not viable in my precinct, I will go with Biden because we need someone a little more moderate,” she said. “Bernie Sanders is not really a uniter. He’s more of a divider, and he really hasn’t gotten anything done in Congress even though he’s been there forever.”
A few miles away, at the Marriott hotel’s ballroom, Andrew Yang delivered his closing arguments. Yang, an entrepreneur and a philanthropist, is known for his “freedom dividend” proposal, which calls for a universal basic income. Despite his slim chances of winning the state, more than 800 people came to watch him in Des Moines on Saturday night.Alexis Dabney, an educator from Denver, Colorado, and her spouse, Jesse Boyd, an engineer, took a 1,000-kilometer flight from their hometown to attend his rally on Saturday night.“Yang is really trying to make a name for himself, and this is the first state to vote,” Boyd said. “So, if he does well here, you can do a lot better in a later stage.“His policies are very 21st-century focused, when every other candidate is not quite on his level with that,” Dabney said. “[He also enjoys] broad support among both progressives and conservatives. We are in such a polarized time. He is thinking of how our economy is changing and not just looking at this moment, which is radically changing, but what it’s going to look like in the next 10 years.” Boyd said: “This is his solution to the issues of the 21st century, one of which is automation. He wants to give everyone just a standard universal basic income.”Dabney said: “[The primaries in Iowa] can take an underdog candidate, like it took [Barack] Obama, who showed up well in Iowa in 2008. And that sort of gave everyone else permission to take a chance on the underdog.”On Monday at 7 p.m., 1,679 caucuses will be held simultaneously across the state.
