POLITICS

Challenging Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Gains Momentum in Iowa

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DES MOINES — A mere 240 people live in the rural northeast Iowa town of Kensett, so when more than 300 crowded into the community center on Saturday night to hear Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, many driving 50 miles, the cellphones of Democratic leaders statewide began to buzz.
Kurt Meyer, the county party chairman who organized the event, sent a text message to Troy Price, the Iowa political director for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Price called back immediately.
“Objects in your rearview mirror are closer than they appear,” Mr. Meyer said he had told Mr. Price about Mr. Sanders. “Mrs. Clinton had better get out here.”
The first evidence that Mrs. Clinton could face a credible challenge in the Iowa presidential caucuses appeared late last week in the form of overflow crowds at Mr. Sanders’s first swing through that state since declaring his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. He drew 700 people to an event on Thursday night in Davenport, for instance — the largest rally in the state for any single candidate this campaign season, and far more than the 50 people who attended a rally there on Saturday with former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland.

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The first-in-the-nation caucuses, on Feb. 1, loom as a major test for Mrs. Clinton: She came in third in Iowa during her presidential run in 2008, and anything less than a decisive victory this time would rattle her shell of inevitability and raise questions about her strengths as a standard-bearer for an increasingly liberal Democratic Party.
Mr. Sanders is considered the Senate’s most left-wing member, and he has been inspiring fervor among the Democratic base at recent rallies and town-hall-style meetings, including on Wednesday in the first presidential primary state, New Hampshire.
Mrs. Clinton is far ahead in the polls, fund-raising and name recognition, however, and she is expected to continue to have a much more organized and sophisticated campaign operation in Iowa and nationwide than Mr. Sanders has. Her mix of centrist and progressive Democratic views may yet prove more appealing to the broadest number of party voters as well, while some of Mr. Sanders’s policy prescriptions — including far higher taxes on the wealthy and deep military spending cuts — may eventually persuade Democrats that he is unelectable in a general election.
Even before Mr. Sanders drew unexpected levels of support at his Iowa events, advisers to Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign were emphasizing that they expected the caucuses to be competitive.
“We’ve said from day one that we take nothing for granted, and two, we’re humble, which is a direction from Hillary herself,” said Matt Paul, Mrs. Clinton’s Iowa director.
Judging from Mr. Sanders’s trip here last week, there is real support for his message — though some Democrats also simply want to send a warning shot to Mrs. Clinton to get her to visit here more.
Mrs. Clinton’s large Iowa staff, which arranged her earlier visits to the state, when she met with small groups on a “listening tour” in carefully controlled settings, has taken the posture of not overreacting to Mr. Sanders or taking him too seriously. The Clinton team did not send anyone to observe or record the Sanders events, for instance.
Other Democratic strategists in the state, unaffiliated with any candidate, said Mrs. Clinton’s aura of inevitability, with a nearly 50-point lead over Democratic rivals in most recent nationwide polls, was one of her greatest challenges.
“At this point, expectations are really probably the toughest thing for the Clinton camp to manage,” said Brad Anderson, who ran President Obama’s re-election campaign in Iowa in 2012.
Almost as important as who wins the Iowa caucuses is the candidates’ finishing order. A strong second-place finish here can propel a candidate as the race heads to New Hampshire and other early voting states.
If Mrs. Clinton wins the caucuses but not by a significant margin, she will risk being embarrassed, and the runner-up will look like a serious challenger to what once appeared to be Mrs. Clinton’s inevitable road to the nomination.
“Let’s say she wins by less than 20 percent,” said Mr. Meyer, chairman of the Tri-County Democrats. “That’s a two-ticket-out-of-Iowa thing.”
Grant Woodard, a Democratic strategist close to the Clinton team but not working for it, said, “They understand they’re going to be challenged, and they’re preparing for that inevitability.”
That challenge may be emerging sooner than expected. The large crowds for Mr. Sanders were a sign of many voters’ desire to hear and meet Democratic candidates in free-flowing town-hall-style gatherings, with policy issues discussed in detail, which Mrs. Clinton has so far avoided. Her campaign has promised that such events will follow this summer.
Mr. Sanders’s stop at a brewery in Ames on Saturday was so mobbed that more than 100 people who could not fit inside peered through the windows.
Along with a picture of the scene he posted on Twitter, Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University who teaches a course on the caucuses, wrote, “Hillary should worry.”
Iowa Democrats “truly hate Clinton’s ‘listening tour’ campaign,” Mr. Schmidt said in a follow-up email exchange. “They feel neglected.”
But one reason the Clinton campaign may not be visibly breaking a sweat is that it is far ahead in building a network of organizers in Iowa, who are key to turning out voters in a caucus state. The campaign has 30 paid organizers around the state who are contacting Democrats at every level, from likely caucus attendees to local and statewide elected officials. The numbers are sure to grow as the caucuses approach.
Mr. Sanders has just two paid staff members so far in the state. “One of the problems we’re having is things are moving so fast our infrastructure hasn’t kept up with our political reality,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. His Iowa director, Pete D’Alessandro, said he was planning to hire up to 30 paid staff members by midsummer.
Mrs. Clinton’s advisers are most concerned that Mr. Sanders might prove effective, particularly in the Democrats’ televised debates, at painting Mrs. Clinton as squishy or untrustworthy on liberal issues.
The crowds at Mr. Sanders’s Iowa events appeared to be different from the state’s famously finicky tire-kickers. Many said they had already made up their mind to support Mr. Sanders. They applauded his calls for higher taxes on the rich to pay for 13 million public works jobs, for decisive action on climate change and for free tuition at public colleges.
“Look at all these people,” said Phyllis Viner, 68, a yoga instructor who attended his Davenport event at St. Ambrose University.
Lindsay O’Keefe, 22, who took a picture of a Sanders poster that read, “Paid for by Bernie 2016 (not the billionaires),” called Mr. Sanders “a really valuable candidate” who can “push Hillary to the left” even if he does not defeat her.
The next day, in Muscatine, Iowa, after a rally at a community college drew twice the expected audience of 50, Mr. Sanders seemed to be experiencing a contact high from the size of his crowds. He sat on a picnic table outside for a short interview.
“Be amazed at what you saw here,” he said, adding, “I want to win this.”