It’s the Home Stretch in Iowa. But Where Are All the Candidates?

If you can’t see Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, ice cream and dogs will have to do.

Sue Ogrocki/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Bernie Sanders’ town hall in Creston, Iowa, on Friday afternoon had most of the trappings of the hectic homestretch of a presidential campaign. At a community college auditorium an hour southwest of Des Moines, volunteers handed out cards with information about caucus sites, and a local field organizer gave a hard-sell about picking up weekend canvassing shifts. There was the campaign bus, the security guards, and ample space in the back for TV cameras. On my way into town, I passed a pair of young Sanders supporters trudging through the slushy sidewalks with campaign literature tucked under their arms.

There was only one thing missing: the candidate himself.

Instead, about three dozen attendees heard from a physician who’s struggling with student loan debt; the senator’s wife, Jane; and filmmaker Michael Moore, who—in a line that Sanders will probably not choose to steal—told supporters that former Vice President Joe Biden’s closing pitch about electability was like a bad a dating profile. “Wow, that’s how low the bar is now?” Moore said. “All you gotta be is safe? If you were single and you went on Match.com and you were reading the profile and the guy said, ‘Go out with me, I’m safe,’ you’d be like, ‘Wow, I don’t think so!’”

Impeachment might be the biggest story in the news this week. But by keeping candidates off the trail, it’s also wreaking havoc on what is likely to be the biggest story in the news next week. Not only have three of the top five candidates in Iowa (Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar) been stuck in Washington for the Senate impeachment trial, they’re also all but muzzled while they’re there—trapped in the Senate chamber without cell phones, left to communicate only through questions read in the dulcet voice of Chief Justice John Roberts. The result is that Biden and Pete Buttigieg (okay, and Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer) have largely had the state to themselves. The senators’ campaigns have scrambled to fill their crunch-time programming with surrogates, spouses, dance parties, ice cream, tele-town halls, and even a chance to meet one very good dog.

How do you fill the gap? In Sanders’ case, he’s drawn from a mix of congressional endorsers and high-profile lefty activists. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) were all in town this week for organizing events, along with Moore and the writer Naomi Klein. Meanwhile, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield—usually just known just by their first names—barnstormed the state hosting ice cream socials for Sanders supporters.

The stop in Creston, one of seven Jane Sanders would be making in three days, was smaller than what Bernie Sanders typically draws, and there was none of the rock-concert atmosphere that sometimes accompanies him. (There would be a literal rock concert on Friday night featuring Bon Iver, however, if that was your thing.) Moore is long-winded and prone to long asides (one was about a peewee team) and though he has a certain cachet, he’s no substitute for the man whose name is on the bus; it’s a bit like having J.R. Smith take the game-winning shot when you also have LeBron James.

But there was also a positive tradeoff; the intimate setting afforded a chance for a different kind of politicking. That personal touch can still make a difference at a time when candidates are vying not just to be voters’ first choice, but to be their second, due to the way caucuses are organized. If a candidate fails to clear 15 percent in the first round of voting, their supporters are released and have to pick a new candidate to support.

Dyan Huffman, a retiree from Creston who was there with her husband (currently undecided), told me she was planning to caucus for Klobuchar on Monday, but after hearing from Moore and Jane Sanders, she’d decided to switch over to Sanders should the Minnesota senator fail to hit the 15-percent viability threshold. “He was wonderful,” she said of Moore, and she was impressed by Jane’s discussion of health care.

Warren, who has struggled in the polls in Iowa after rising to the top of the field in the fall, might be particularly hard hit by the impeachment schedule as she tries to make up ground. On Friday, a group of congressional endorsers, including Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) and Katie Porter (D-Calif.), descended on the state for organizing events, culminating in a big rally in Des Moines. Afterwards, supporters decamped to a bar across the street to await Warren’s arrival in the city later that night. Perhaps a bigger sell, the candidate’s dog, Bailey, made a whirlwind three-stop swing at campaign offices in Waterloo, Waverly, and Fort Dodge. There are evidently worse surrogates to have; at the Des Moines rally, Warren’s husband, Bruce Mann, told the audience that just that afternoon, Bailey had persuaded a voter.

When I caught former presidential candidate and Warren endorser Julian Castro in Fairfield, Iowa, on Tuesday, his third stop of the day, a few dozen voters—mostly Warren supporters—were waiting for him at a tea shop with rows of prayer flags hanging from the ceiling. Cohen and Greenfield were already underway a few blocks down the street.

“They’ve got Ben and Jerry serving ice cream down the street,” Mo Ellis, a Warren fan, told me. “I told my friends, grab your ice creams and then come meet Julian!”

Castro’s visit was particularly significant for Danella Lubar of Fairfield, who was sitting by the front door. She had spoken with the former San Antonio mayor four years ago when he came to pitch voters on behalf of Hillary Clinton, and, though she was leaning toward supporting Warren, she wanted to hear directly from him as to why she should commit to Warren. Castro did his best to make the sell.

“One thing you need to be is able to forge those relationships,” he said. “Hey, I’m here!”

When it was over, a staffer invited attendees to get in line. Castro would be taking selfies with anyone who wanted one. Warren might have missed it; but some traditions must be observed regardless.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate