(Bloomberg) -- Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar are finding creative ways to engage with Iowans as the candidates remain stuck in Washington for Donald Trump’s impeachment trial less than a week before the state’s Feb. 3 caucuses.
Warren hosted a telephone town hall with Iowa voters. Klobuchar flew to the state just for a three-hour drop-in. Sanders was represented on the trail by the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream, who campaigned for him across Iowa.
The three senators, who all have a constitutional duty to serve as jurors in the Trump trial, have five days to convince the roughly 45% of Iowa caucus goers who remain undecided in the presidential race to stand in their corner. Polls of the state show a fluid race, with Sanders in the lead, followed by Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, and Warren in fourth place trailed by Klobuchar.
“Woo-hoo!” Warren exclaimed as she joined the call Tuesday night. “It’s fun to be on a tele-town hall. I wish we were doing an in-person town hall, but this is the best we can do. I’m here in Washington because of the impeachment.”
The senator from Massachusetts spoke for about two minutes before opening up the call to questions. After a voter asked her how to convince caucus goers to support her next week, Warren seized the opportunity to deliver her electability pitch.
She said, tell undecideds, “she’s our best chance to win in November, she’s the one. The reason for that is she knows how to fight and she knows how to win.”
Trying to sway Trump voters
Another participant asked Warren how she could convince her family members who voted for Trump in 2016 to vote for her this time, instead of Sanders. Warren evoked her Republican brothers, who she said shared her views on issues like corruption and corporations such as Amazon not paying taxes. “I think we’re gonna do pretty well with folks who voted the other way last time,” Warren said.
About 20,000 people joined the call, according to the Warren campaign. For about an hour, she answered questions about her plans to cut back on defense spending, her vision for tackling corruption in Washington, and her Medicare For All proposal.
“Commit to caucus for me. Do it tonight,” Warren said. “Volunteer an hour to phone bank or knock on doors, pitch in 10 bucks. Get in the fight because this moment in history will not come our way again.”
Warren was not the only candidate stuck in Washington to host a tele-town hall. Klobuchar has already held three over the past week. Each lasted about an hour during which the Minnesota senator answered about 10 questions. In one call, she pitched seniors her plans to lower the cost of prescription drugs and make health insurance more affordable. About 35,500 Iowans participated in the events, her campaign estimated, a number of voters that exceeds any crowd Klobuchar has attracted at an in-person town hall.
The tele-town halls are also a way for Klobuchar to organize, her campaign said. Iowans receive a recorded message on behalf of the Klobuchar campaign asking them if they would like to participate in the call. They can press a number on their screen if they do. Once or twice throughout the virtual town hall, the campaign would prompt participants to press “1” if they would like to commit-to-caucus for Klobuchar or “2” if they would like to volunteer for her.
Klobuchar also made time for face-to-face interactions. On Tuesday morning, her campaign saw a small window in the Senate impeachment trial schedule that would allow her to travel to Iowa for the night. The campaign had five hours to put an event together. Her Iowa staff booked a location -- Barley’s Taproom in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The candidate landed in town at 6:05 p.m., headed to her 7:00 town hall, then squeezed in a handful of local interviews and was wheels-up back to Washington DC by 9:30.
Sanders has not yet released details about his travel to Iowa, but his surrogates were deployed throughout the state this week.
Ice-Cream Socials
Sanders campaign co-chair Ben Cohen and surrogate Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s, held ice-cream socials throughout the state. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore joined one of the events.
Ben and Jerry, along with activist and actress Susan Sarandon, had also campaigned at about 12 events in New Hampshire last week. The “Ice Cream Social” tour reached over 880 students in colleges around the Granite State, the campaign said.
Warren is using also using surrogates. Julian Castro, who dropped out of the 2020 race and endorsed her, will tour Iowa on her behalf. Warren’s husband, Bruce Mann, will campaign in Iowa, along with the couple’s golden retriever, Bailey Warren.
Other family members working the campaign trail include Klobuchar’s daughter Abigail Bessler, who last week held house parties for her mom around Iowa, where she offered voters ‘hot dish,’ a classic Minnesota casserole topped with Tater Tots.
“Hot dish is a great unifier -- just like Amy,“ the event invitations read.
The candidates may have to make plans to be away from the trail right up until the caucuses. On Tuesday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republican senators that he doesn’t yet have the votes needed to block witnesses from being called to testify. If witnesses are called, the trial could continue into next week, keeping the senators locked down in Washington.
For now, Klobuchar is scheduled to spend the final days leading up to the caucuses campaigning across Iowa, with town halls planned in Indianola, Sioux City, Mason City and Cedar Rapids this weekend. Warren has scheduled a road trip that will take her from the Missouri River to the Mississippi in the closing days of the Iowa campaign.
(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)
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