The 2020 campaign of Bernie Sanders does not guarantee a win in Iowa next year, which is a significant state in order for Sanders to win the presidential nomination from the Democratic party.
The co-chairman of the campaign, Representative Ro Khana stated that the Vermont senator is certainly going to win Iowa, which according to The Hill is a bold statement considering there is eight months until the caucus that is set to take place on Feb. 3, where Sanders will be battling Democratic rivals like Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I fully anticipate he’ll win Iowa, having been on the ground there. And I think he’s going to do very well in New Hampshire and then there will be fight between him and probably Warren and Biden,” Khanna said. “I’d be very surprised if he doesn’t win Iowa.”
Sanders, who has slipped in national polls recently, is counting on a strong showing in Iowa to give him momentum heading into New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — the second, third, and fourth contests of the primary season before Super Tuesday on March 3.
A Gravis Marketing poll of 590 registered Democrats in Iowa from mid-April showed Biden and Sanders in a tie.
That’s been a solace to the Sanders campaign as other polls show him sliding. Surveys by Monmouth University found him dropping nationally, from 25 percent in March to 20 percent in April and then 15 percent in May.
A win in Iowa by Sanders would put him on the same path as former President Barack Obama in 2008, when he defeated establishment-favored Hillary Clinton.
Iowa has at times played the role of giant-killer.
Clinton finished third in 2008, a setback from which she never fully recovered. Eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney tied with conservative Rick Santorum in 2012. Four years earlier, John McCain came in fourth.
Former President Clinton mustered only 3 percent support in 1992, and his predecessor, former President George H.W. Bush, came in third place in 1988.
“It tends to be a more progressive electorate in that caucus process, that’s been the history and tradition of it,” said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who advised Sanders’s campaign in 2016. “There’s a maverick streak in Iowa and — this goes back to the Vietnam War — there’s been an anti-war movement in Iowa that’s gone on for generations.”
“I saw it with Bernie. His vote against the Iraq war was a very critical factor,” he added.
The state could be a stumbling block for Biden, who voted for the Iraq war.
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