Scores of volunteers from across the US descended on icy Iowa ahead of today’s Democratic caucus with one goal: nominating a candidate who can defeat Republican US President Donald Trump in November.
Walking door-to-door to try to win over campaign-wary Iowans can be lonely and thankless work, but opinion polls showing a tight race and Democrats’ widespread aversion to Trump have kept volunteers coming to the rural state that hosts the US’ first nominating contest of the presidential election.
Maryland native Dylan Newberry, 27, moved to Iowa early last month to volunteer for US Senator Cory Booker. He then extended his stay and switched his support to former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg after Booker dropped out.
Photo: AFP
“Our leader [Trump] is very much trying to divide us with hate,” Newberry said as he carried a clipboard door-to-door in a quiet neighborhood in Des Moines, Iowa. “I really think we need to win this election.”
Newberry is one of thousands volunteering for Buttigieg, who is trailing US Senator Bernie Sanders and former US vice president Joe Biden in most opinion polls, and needs a strong showing in Iowa to remain in contention.
The Sanders campaign, which has seen a recent surge in support in Iowa, said volunteers from all over the country knocked on 130,000 doors during the final weekend of last month alone.
The campaigns declined to give exact numbers of volunteers working in the state.
The caucuses have no paper ballots and choose candidates entirely by turnout at 1,600 meetings, giving volunteers an outsize role in the process, Polk County Democrats executive director Judy Downs said.
“Whether that’s providing rides or childcare, the campaign that can turn out voters the best is going to win,” Downs said.
Opinion polls show Sanders and Biden in a dead heat, with Buttigieg and US Senator Elizabeth Warren close behind. US Senator Amy Klobuchar is fifth, the only other candidate within striking distance of the leaders.
Democratic presidential candidates on Saturday promised voters in Iowa that they would unify the party to take on Trump even as they kept up their criticism of each other and navigated the lingering divides from the 2016 campaign.
“I’m confident Americans, Republican voters, Democratic voters and independent voters want us to come together,” Biden said in North Liberty. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make progress in the areas that matter most.”
About 32km away in Cedar Rapids, Massachusetts, Warren updated her stump speech to include a more explicit call for unity.
“We’re down to the final strokes here,” she said. “But we understand that, we will and we must come together as a party to beat Donald Trump and I’ve got a plan for that.”
Sanders said he would back the ultimate Democratic nominee even if it is not him.
“Let me say this so there’s no misunderstanding,” he said in Indianola, Iowa. “If we do not win, we will support the winner and I know that every other candidate will do the same.”
On the eve of today’s Iowa caucuses, the unity pledges marked an early — and urgent — effort to avoid the divides that some Democrats have said helped Trump win the presidency in 2016.
On Saturday, the final Des Moines Register poll — traditionally seen as the gold standard survey of the caucus electorate — was pulled from publication after questions about its methodology.
The newspaper said Buttigieg might have been left off the list of candidates presented to a caucus-goer in at least one call.
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