Impeachment an impediment to some candidates' time in Iowa

On Monday, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg held four town halls across Iowa, and former Vice President Joe Biden spoke at three events in the state the same day.

Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer and John Delaney also made appearances in Iowa on Monday, a week before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

However, three of the top-polling candidates, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar, were far from Iowa in Washington, D.C., sitting as jurors in the Senate impeachment trial for President Donald Trump.

But their supporters don’t think the senators’ limited time in Iowa will hurt them.

“I want our senators to be there. They need to be there. That’s their job, and what it shows is, they’re dedicated to that job first. Running is second to being a senator who needs to be there,” Sarah Raper, a Sanders supporter from Coralville, said.

Raper attended the senator’s rally in Iowa City on Friday. At that event, Sanders called in from Washington to share a message with supporters, while Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, filmmaker Michael Moore and others stumped on his behalf.

“It actually works to their advantage in some ways,” added Yolanda Villalvazo, of Iowa City, a fellow Sanders backer who was also at Friday’s rally. “It means to me that they’re willing to be in Washington, D.C., when it matters, so they’re going to vote a certain way. So I really think that they’re committed to their job.”

On Sunday, Elizabeth Warren spent one of her few days off from the trial in Iowa, speaking at a town hall in Cedar Rapids alongside Jonathan Van Ness, one of the stars of the Netflix TV series “Queer Eye.”

One of her supporters, Olivia Barker, of Iowa City, said she thinks Warren and the other senators have already spent enough time in Iowa that their absence from the state during the trial shouldn’t be an issue.

“I feel like they’ve all kind of been here equally, as far as I’ve seen,” Barker said.

University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle also doesn’t think it’ll make a difference.

“I think Iowans understand the sort of odd situation that these senators find themselves in,” Hagle said.

In addition to relying on surrogates to spread the senators’ messages while they’re in D.C., Hagle points to events like Klobuchar’s recent tele-town hall as ways they’re working around the trial.

Hagle also said that their absence most likely won’t provide a boost for Buttigieg, Biden and the other non-senator candidates, an assessment some caucus-goers agreed with.

“I think the familiarity of the candidates that are coming here is definitely a good thing for undecided voters, but I think for voters that are pretty firm in where they stand, they’re not so much worried about not having those candidates in Iowa,” Rachel Sexton, an undecided caucus-goer, of Cedar Rapids, said.

“I don’t really think it’s going to make a difference,” Betty Von Lehmden, a Buttigieg supporter, of Rowley, said, who was at his town hall Monday. “Too much is riding on the impeachment too, so you’ve got to pay attention to that also.”

Supporters like Von Lehmden are still glad for a chance to see their candidate in person.

“He’s a veteran, and he’s intelligent, and I think he’s the smartest person running,” Von Lehmden said, referring to Buttigieg.