Iowans know that once every four years the country's spotlight fixes squarely on them. I land here in Des Moines, with a population of some 200,000 people. It's my first time in this Midwestern state, and it feels like another world. The city is already apathetic to the army of reporters that has descended upon them from across the globe. The prices, even if still far cheaper than Washington, New York and Los Angeles, see a serious hike this time of year. It's all hands on deck; there are no vacation days, not in the hotels and not in the restaurants.
All the hotels are at full capacity. In freezing Iowa, the Democratic race to the White House will begin on Monday. It is a small state with a small population, and isn't demographically representative of the United States (it's 91% white). Therefore, it only has a tiny number of Electoral College votes in the general election. But tradition is tradition, and this is where the election race kicks off. There are no voting stations, rather caucuses.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Because US President Donald Trump is running for a second term, the Republican primary is merely a matter of protocol, as his nomination is assured. On the Democratic side, however, there is all-out war. And this is the war before the real one takes place, which will very much resemble the acerbic melee between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, if not worse.
This fight will be over the face and character of American society over the coming decade, and the Democrats will need to do the impossible: defeat a sitting president during a period of record economic growth, while they themselves are profoundly splintered.
Trump didn't wait until Monday. On Thursday, after bringing out thousands of supporters to a rally in predominantly Democratic New Jersey, he decided to steal the show from the Democrats by holding a gigantic rally in Iowa. On the surface, he achieved his goal: There were no photos of any Democratic candidates on the front page of the Des Moines Register; only a photo of the president disembarking his plane and a headline about the promises he's made to the small state. In general, it appears the Democrats shot themselves in the foot when they vacillated at the outset of his impeachment trial, which forced the four senators competing in the primary (Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bennet and Elizabeth Warren) to be in Washington and miss the crucial moments of the race.
On Friday, the impeachment trial reached a decisive moment: The Democrats failed in their attempt to pass a motion that would have allowed them to summon witnesses, among them former National Security Adviser John Bolton, whose book contained leaks with incriminating evidence, allegedly, about Trump's involvement in "Ukraine-Gate." The significance of this failure: The verdict in the Trump trial will be issued in the coming days, likely on Wednesday. Trump is expected to win an acquittal because Republicans hold the majority in the Senate.
In the meantime, Trump chose to hold his rally on the campus of Drake University. As usual at a Trump rally, the crowd comes for a happening. And Trump, much like the 2016 election, doesn't plan on giving any gifts. "We are going to beat the radical socialist Democrats," he vowed at the rally.
The Democrats' obsession with impeaching Trump in the Senate is a tad bewildering. Isn't this an election year?
'They don't trust themselves'
"Maybe they don't trust themselves," Lara, a political science student at Iowa University, tells me. "The craziness around the president's impeachment shows a lack of self-confidence on their part," she says. From her perspective, Trump will be the next president, although she is on the Democratic side of the state. Iowa has six Electoral College votes, but is considered a swing state. Twice it gave its Electoral votes to Barak Obama, but in 2016 Obama's "heir," Hillary Clinton, suffered a landslide there and Trump took those votes.
Victory in Iowa breathes life into a candidate's campaign race and gives them the spotlight, and sometimes makes the difference between losing altitude and soaring to the White House. John Kerry was thrown a life preserver when out of nowhere he won Iowa, and it gave him the momentum he needed to continue his campaign run, until finally winning the nomination.
And now, the Democratic candidates are choosing to focus on Trump instead of on themselves. Joe Biden mentioned the president every 17 seconds (64 times in 19 minutes) at his campaign rally. Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, flew here in Trump's wake. He simply jumped from station to station that Trump won. In the polls themselves, Sanders is usually in the lead. "Who takes polls seriously these days in America?" says Jason, the owner of a small restaurant where I'm drinking my morning coffee. "I see the poll and read it backward." Jason, too, doesn't understand what they want from Trump. "He's good for business."
Some 180 kilometers (112 miles) from the capital Des Moines, former Vice President Joe Biden, who wants to be the next president, spoke at a school gymnasium in Waukee. The gym wasn't very big, thank goodness. No more than 200 supporters showed up to listen to him. In comparison to Trump, this is a drop in the ocean. But Biden didn't stop chastising the president on a personal basis. His crowd wasn't overly enthused. Nor was he. When we met, he projected a sense of calm. Biden takes my cell phone, isn't scared off by the Hebrew on the device, and insists on finding the camera app on his own – he snaps a selfie of us. "I'm going to work hard – and win," he declares. I asked him how so many supporters attend Trump rallies, despite everything he says about him. I didn't get an answer, but there's no question that out of all the Democratic candidates he seems the sanest.
Kerry: 'The deal of the century isn't simple'
Meanwhile, I asked John Kerry, who was the Democratic candidate in 2004, about the deal of the century: "It's not simple; I saw the Palestinians' reaction." And as for the large crowd at the Trump rally? "Half this country supports him and I'd like to explain to them why they're wrong, but I respect them," he said.
Without a doubt, the elections in America are the best show in town, but something is subdued this time. Is it the impeachment trial, or the fact that the 2016 election was so tumultuous, or simply that the Republicans now control the spotlight because of one man, and he already has the nomination? As various sites noted in 2019, there are several types of voters who want Trump to remain president until 2025. Some want him because of the economy, others will vote for him because of his conservative values, and others are simply charmed by the fact that he's willing to do things that others aren't. He's a project manager who brings results, such as the barrier on the Mexican border, and they love giving him a chance.
And as Trump himself made clear in Iowa on Thursday: "I don't plan on losing this state. I don't plan on losing any state." And at least based on the images from his rallies, it's safe to assume his voters from 2016 will come out and vote again. The images show that the arena where he held his rally was packed to the brim (7,000 seats) – as Trump has accustomed us to.
Boaz Bismuth is editor-in-chief of Israel Hayom
