Within the Democrats’ sprawling presidential contest is a smaller, yet critical competition among a handful of candidates jockeying to secure the backing of their party’s establishment wing. The first answers come Monday in the Iowa caucuses when voters begin sorting out the fight between progressive candidates, who are arguing for revolutionary change, and more moderate contenders, who many in the party believe have the better chance to defeat President Donald Trump in November. Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have been making the case in Iowa that they can assemble a broader coalition of voters in states essential to denying Trump’s reelection. Waiting for them on the Super Tuesday primaries in March is Mike Bloomberg, an ideologically similar candidate who is skipping the early contests as he spends hundreds of millions of dollars in larger states. Their candidacies are rooted in the idea of electability, and a belief that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are proposing ideas that excite core Democratic voters with sweeping, expensive calls for structural change but would fall well short of winning an electoral majority against the Republican incumbent. Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a leading establishment figure, believes Biden enters the caucuses as the moderate front-runner, even as McAuliffe acknowledges he has questioned whether the 77-year-old former vice president can sustain his strength. “I thought hard about running for president. I was concerned Biden was in my space,” McAuliffe said in an interview. “Part of my calculation was, ‘Could he hold up?’ And I have to be honest with you, he has held up. We made the right decision.” “Iowa will be a real determinant,” McAuliffe said. “This field will begin to change.” The unofficial establishment primary will help determine the identity of the Democratic Party in 2020 as it frames the matchup against Trump. The three top Democrats in Iowa most often considered moderates oppose aggressive progressive priorities such as “Medicare for All,” yet their profiles offer sharply different views of the world. Biden is a lifelong politician with working-class roots. The 38-year-old Buttigieg is a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and an openly gay ex-military intelligence officer. Klobuchar is a 59-year-old three-term Minnesota senator and a former county prosecutor. In Iowa, the establishment-minded Democrats are working to assemble a coalition of voters that typically skews older, more rural and even includes non-Democrats. Strategists for Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar note they have specifically targeted moderate Republicans over the race’s final days. Klobuchar’s team say she’s the only candidate to have campaigned in all of the 31 counties in Iowa that previously backed President Barack Obama but flipped to Trump in 2016. “We’re reaching out to our Democratic base but also looking to broaden the tent,” Klobuchar campaign manager Justin Buoen said, pointing to their efforts to win over moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans and disaffected Trump voters. Buttigieg has focused on similar ground in Iowa, especially targeting the eastern cities that once boasted thousands of heavy equipment manufacturing jobs. He has also aggressively campaigned in small towns in the more conservative corners of the state. Buttigieg’s campaign acknowledged that Buttigieg is drawing a contrast with Biden and Klobuchar, but disputed any suggestion that he’s a centrist candidate. His campaign portrays him as someone pushing for change and is a Washington outsider who defies […]
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