Surrogates Take Center Stage as Senators Watch Impeachment Trial

(Bloomberg) -- The four senators running for the Democratic presidential nomination are leaning heavily on surrogates while they are stuck in Washington serving jury duty on President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

As the Senate trial gets under way in earnest this week, Elizabeth Warren is sending in Representative Ayanna Pressley, Bernie Sanders is putting forward Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Klobuchar is leaning on local officials and Michael Bennet has former Clinton adviser James Carville.

And everyone is sending their spouses.

Surrogates can only do so much, especially if they’re not as well-known as Sanders and Warren, who are often big draws on the trail.

But they may prove helpful in another way, as the race turns more negative in the waning days. Candidates have long used surrogates to criticize rivals while keeping their own hands clean, although Sanders apologized Tuesday when one of his supporters wrote in an op-ed that Joe Biden “has a big corruption problem.”

This post is part of Campaign Update, our live coverage from the 2020 campaign trail.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Titus

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