Harris Woos Iowans Sore That She's Been Absent From Key State
Harris Woos Iowans Sore That She's Been Absent From Key State
(Bloomberg) -- When Anna Mullen heard Kamala Harris speak at a CNN Iowa town hall in January, the atmosphere was subdued and the Democratic candidate appeared reserved. This week, Mullen said, Harris seemed “authentically herself” and got an enthusiastic reception.
“This event has more energy and committed enthusiasm for Kamala,” Mullen said, referring to the engaged crowd that was clapping and cheering during a Harris town hall in Des Moines on Wednesday night.
Mullen, a 30-year-old nonprofit worker from Des Moines, was one of hundreds of eager potential caucus-goers who gathered at Fourth of July events across the Hawkeye State for a chance to see the California senator after her breakout debate performance on June 27.
She had been largely missing in action in Iowa. Many of her Democratic rivals made repeated visits to the state, which holds the crucial first-in-the-nation nominating contest, but Harris made a priority of South Carolina and Nevada -- trying to lock in support from African-American voters and unions -- as well as California, where she hopes for a home state advantage.
For most of the campaign, she has seemed slow to invest in Iowa. She ranks 17th among other Democrats in the number of events held there so far, according to the most recent data from the Des Moines Register. She trailed some of her biggest competitors like Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders.
Yet after the debate, where she seized the spotlight with deeply personal criticism of former Vice President Joe Biden’s opposition to busing as a senator in the 1970s, her standing dramatically shifted. While she had been languishing in the single digits in polls, she’s now at 18% in Iowa, closely trailing Warren at 20% and slightly surpassing Biden, who’s at 17%, according to a July 3 poll commissioned by Focus on Rural America.
National surveys also show Harris on a tear. She was in second place in a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday, at 20%, just 2 percentage points behind Biden, the national front-runner, and ahead of Warren at 14%.
Harris has shifted her strategy in Iowa, where building personal relationships with voters can make all the difference on caucus night next February. Her campaign announced this week that it had almost doubled the number of organizing staff in the state, from 35 in June to 65 in July, surpassing Cory Booker’s 50-person team.
That puts Harris on an equal footing with Warren, who already had 65 people on the ground.
“What happens in this state, to this state, is a bellwether for what happens in the United States,” Harris said in Indianola on Thursday.
Harris has given reassurances of her commitment to the state’s Democrats, who’d been grumbling that she’d written them off. She finally visited Sioux City, where she’d canceled an event in June, and campaigned in Des Moines, Indianola and Council Bluffs.
“It’s incredibly helpful to reach out to voters if you have a moment like this,” said Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, who attended a Harris picnic in Des Moines. “You can really help turn that kind of excitement that comes from events like the debate into true and lasting support. It’s all about retail politics here.”
Trailing Warren for the No. 2 spot is a good place for Harris to be, says Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Polk County Democratic Party, which includes Des Moines. Barack Obama was in the same position at this point in the 2008 race, Bagniewski said. Obama ultimately won the state, even though its African-American population is just 4%.
Harris has “done a really good job at being more present, the next phase for her is maintaining that momentum,” Bagniewski added. “If Kamala is doing anything right now, it’s having to build up their ground game that matches her national premise.”
Miryam Lipper, the Iowa communications director for Harris, said the campaign intentionally waited until July to build up its presence.
“We knew the debate was going to be a pivotal moment but we also knew July was when Iowans were going to tune into the campaign,” Lipper said. “Now we have the staff on the ground to capitalize on these moments.”
Harris’s renewed commitment to Iowa and the opportunity to spend time with her is energizing Iowa voters. Watching her performance at the debate is what prompted Peggy Beeler of Ottumwa, who retired from a career in human resources, to show up at the picnic on Wednesday.
Beeler, 62, said Harris “just won the debates, she did excellent, she nailed it,” by being “clear, concise and authentic” on stage and proving “she’s not afraid to get in a fight.”
Now, Beeler has narrowed down her choice to two candidates: Harris and Warren, who also says she has specific plans and is “concise, passionate and authentic.” Beeler is hoping to see the two of them on the same stage in the next debate.
As she interacted with voters over the holiday, Harris promised to address issues affecting Iowans. She said that President Donald Trump had reneged on his promises to farmers, who are facing mounting financial pain from conflicts over trade.
“I don’t need to tell Iowa that this so-called trade policy, trade by tweet,” has fractured the market farmers took so long to build, Harris said during the town hall in Des Moines.
She vowed to hold China accountable for stealing trade secrets and intellectual property from the U.S. while it “dumps substandard products in our economy.”
Harris doubled down on her criticism of Trump, calling him a “predator living in the White House.” She said her history as a prosecutor and California attorney general means she could successfully “prosecute the case against four more years of this administration."
Throughout her speeches, Harris shared personal details about her life and family. She said that she became a lawyer because her parents fought in the civil rights movement and that her mother, a breast cancer researcher, inspired her to fight for women’s health.
When asked for advice on how to run for public office, Harris told a story about her first campaign for district attorney of San Francisco. Using an ironing board, which she said made for a good standing desk on which she’d tape her posters, Harris would set up shop at grocery stores. That way, people would have to stop and listen to her.
“And that’s how you do it,” she said, as the crowd erupted in cheers.
To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.