“Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening and I’m really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucusgoers. Will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point?”
-Joni Ernst
Remember that Republicans — including Ernst — have been arguing for months and months that Trump’s effort to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the activities of Biden and his son, Hunter, in Ukraine had nothing to do with the fact that the former vice president was a) running for the 2020 Democratic nomination and b) was a front-running candidate to be the nominee. Trump’s interest was solely in rooting out corruption! This wasn’t about Biden at all!
Andrew Bates, the Biden campaign’s rapid response director, said in a statement, “Senator Ernst just said the quiet part out loud: Republicans are terrified that Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee, defeat Donald Trump, and help progressives gain seats in the House and take the Senate.”
“Donald Trump himself was so afraid of running against Joe Biden that he became the only president in American history who tried to force a foreign country to lie on behalf of his struggling re-election campaign,” Bates said.
A CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday finds a top tier of three candidates: Sanders (26%), Biden (25%), and Buttigieg (22%). Warren stands at 15%, with Klobuchar at 7% and the rest of the field at 1% or less in that poll.
