Could this be Bernie Sanders’ year? Iowa ‘still feeling’ the Bern ahead of crucial caucuses

One-time outsider now joint frontrunner in crucial state

Bernie Sanders believes 2020 is going to be his year. And in Iowa, many thousands of people agree with him.

On Saturday, up to 3,000 of them, young and old and diverse, packed into this city’s largest venue to roar their support as the veteran senator and frontrunner argued this year’s was the most consequential election in modern history. He said the nation could not let Donald Trump serve another four years.

“The media at the back of the room is not just from America. It’s from around the world,” he said. “The world is watching if the people of Iowa are prepared to stand up for justice. The world is watching to see if the people of Iowa are prepared to create for an economy that helps all people, not just the one per cent.”

He added: “It all begins in Iowa, two days from now. And I’m here to ask you, very humbly, for your support on caucus night.”

It might well have been the Vermont senator’s time four years ago. Written off by Hillary Clinton’s campaign virtually before the contest had started, he ran her to less than half a percentage point in Iowa, and went off to defeat her 60-37 in the second state to vote, New Hampshire. He continued to push her all the way into the summer, refusing to suspend his campaign.

Later it would emerge – thanks to emails apparently obtained by Russian hackers and published by Wikileaks – that some officials in the supposedly neutral Democratic National Committee (DNC) were supporting her, and working against him. The revelation further poisoned the relationship between the two camps, and Sanders’ relationship with the establishment of the party’s whose nomination he was seeking.

Four years on, Sanders’ raft of progressive policies are largely the same – he proposes universal healthcare, tuition-free college, the transition to a green, low-carbon economy, criminal justice reform and a federal minimum wage.

At the age of 78, his style on the stump – pointing, jabbing, his voice sometimes close to a growl – has not altered.

Yet two significant things have shifted. Firstly, in what already counts as victory for the one-time mayor of Burlington, a lot of his seemingly outlier policies have been adopted by many of the other candidates, as the position of progressives such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, the latter of whom was on the stage in Cedar Rapids, has become ascendant.

The second is that Sanders is no longer an unknown outsider: the most recent poll by The New York Times placed him in joint first place in Iowa with Joe Biden, and second nationally to the former vice president, followed by Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.

Rebecca Hovde said one of the reasons she was there to show her support for the senator was because he had worked to expose the unfairly high costs being charged by a drug company for medicine she needs for a rare disease.

One in three million people suffer from Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (Lems), an autoimmune disorder that causes fatigue and weakness. While the pills, of which she requires four a day, cost just 10 cents to make and which she once received for free, Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, which bought the US rights to the drug, wanted to charge an annual sum of $375,000.

“He went to them and called them out,” said Hovde, who lives in Wellman, 50 miles from Cedar Rapids.

Aliah Rowe and Sara Ledesla, both 19, drove nine hours from Arkansas to attend the rally at the US Cellular Centre, which also featured a performance by the New York-based band Vampire Weekend.

“He is not owned by anyone. He is not doing it for himself,” said Rowe.

Ledesla claimed Sanders was the only candidate looking to build a diverse coalition that represents different parts of society. Both said they thought he could defeat Trump and that his age was not an issue.

Sanders raised more money than any of his Democratic rivals in the last quarter of 2019, and has invested heavily in a ground operation in Iowa, backed up by volunteers from across the nation. He claimed his supporters had knocked on 500,000 doors in Iowa alone. The state’s population is just 3.1 million.

Four years ago, a number of those attending Sanders’ events in Iowa and elsewhere suggested they would not support Clinton if she became the nominee. A number said their second choice would be Trump, whom they believed was similarly not-bought, and willing to tell the truth.

The antipathy towards Clinton remains. On Friday, another of Sanders supporters in the House of Representatives, Rashida Tlaib, led booing of Clinton at a campaign event in Clive, Iowa.

Yet few at Saturday’s rally, which also features an address by Cornell West, appeared to have any love for Trump. Rather, they said Democrats had unwisely underestimated him and that it was now vital to defeat him.

“With your help we’re going to defeat this dangerous president, and the reason we’re going to beat him is because we’re build the biggest voter turn out in history,” Sanders told them. “If there is low voter turn out, we lose. But if we get a big voter turn out, we’re going to win.”