She may be a long way from the top, but Sen. Amy Klobuchar is poised to make a late move in Iowa.
The big news to come out of the state in recent weeks has been the surge of Pete Buttigieg. In the Des Moines Register/CNN poll, the South Bend, Indiana, mayor leapfrogged over everybody else to 25%, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren falling back to 16%, in a virtual tie with Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who both had 15%.
But once you get beyond those top candidates, what struck me was that Klobuchar was starting to creep up, having doubled her support since the last poll, to 6%. Looking at a broader measure, she was at just 2% in the RealClearPolitics’ average in Iowa as of late October and is now at 5%.
The reason why her recent jump is noteworthy is that the first initial move is often the hardest part. When a candidate is in the low single digits, it’s difficult to break out, because voters don’t want to waste their time or vote on somebody who they don’t think can win, even if they like that candidate.
But once that candidate starts breaking out a bit, they get more attention, and if they’re well-liked and a good fit for the electorate, they can start polling well enough to be considered “viable.” At that point, those who liked that candidate but didn’t want to waste their vote, start jumping on board — and the growth can be exponential.
Two recent examples I can point to in Iowa are on the Republican side — Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012. Both candidates were, on paper, good fits for the socially conservative Iowa Republican electorate, but they were ignored for much of the race as other candidates duked it out. Huckabee announced at the end of January 2007, and it took seven months of campaigning in Iowa for him to get to 5% in the RealClearPolitics’ average by late August. A month later, he had cracked 10%, and by Thanksgiving, he had broken 20% and was off to the races. In Santorum’s case, his break came even later — it took until December to crack into double digits. Keep in mind that in both years, the caucuses were held in early January, while in 2020, they will be held in February.
The latest poll showed that only 30% of likely caucusgoers say they have definitely made up their minds, and Klobuchar will have another 2 1/2 months to make her case.
Like both Huckabee and Santorum were for Iowa Republicans, Klobuchar, on paper, is a great fit for Iowa Democrats. She’s from the neighboring state of Minnesota. She is ideologically a traditional liberal who is pragmatic enough to avoid the race to the far Left, and judging by the success of Biden and Buttigieg, there seems to be a demand for that in Iowa.
But she is much more experienced than Buttigieg and much younger and more in command of her faculties than Biden. At 53% to 23%, her net 30-point favorable number among likely caucusgoers in the Register poll is higher than anybody other than Buttigieg, Warren, and Biden, suggesting room to grow as more people get to know her.
Sure, if Buttigieg’s support only grows with his time in the spotlight or Biden eases the concerns of Iowa Democrats, Klobuchar probably won’t have much of an opening. But if Buttigieg falters under scrutiny, Klobuchar will be well-positioned to appeal to those looking for a different Biden alternative. Even if she doesn’t win Iowa, surging into a strong second- or third-place showing (depending on the order) could vault her into contention as the field narrows.
