Politico - 19.09.2019

12 | POLITICO | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

Kamala Harris’ support is plung-
ing in Iowa, where she’s seen a
13-point drop since July, accord-
ing to a new poll.
Notably, the survey, commis-
sioned by Focus on Rural America
and taken after the third presiden-
tial debate in Houston, was con-
ducted by Harris’ chief pollster,
David Binder.
In July, after a breakout debate
in Miami, Harris was statistically
tied with Elizabeth Warren and Joe
Biden for first place in the first-in-
the-nation-caucuses state.
The survey, conducted Sept.
14-17, shows Harris sliding into
sixth place, with Biden retaking
the lead he lost over the summer
with 25 percent. Harris recently
embarked on a statewide bus tour
and was the first in the field to run
ads in Iowa. The Harris campaign
did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
The former vice president is sta-
tistically tied with Warren, who is
at 23 percent. Pete Buttigieg, mean-
while, moved into third place, with
12 percent of those surveyed saying
they’d back him for president.
Biden’s 8-point gain since July is
a sign he’s rebuilding the losses he’s
faced in Iowa as he has struggled
to catch up organizationally with
Warren, who began laying down
infrastructure in the state in Janu-
ary. Biden has ramped up his vis-
its to Iowa and increased his level
of staffing to become one of the
largest campaign organizations
on the ground. Warren, though,
has steadily gained support and is
widely considered to have the best
organization in the state.
“At this stage, the race is still
fluid but it’s also very close,” said
Jeff Link, co-founder of Focus
on Rural America. “Once again,
organization matters. It will be
imperative for Biden to match the
Warren organization to maintain
this lead. And, rural counties could
make the difference because they
are harder to organize. That’s why
taking Trump to task on biofuels
and standing up to Big Oil could tip
the scales.”
The poll of 500 likely Democratic
caucusgoers was conducted Sept.
14-17 via phone. Its margin of er-
ror is plus or minus 4.4 percentage
points.

BY NATASHA KORECKI

New poll

finds Harris’

support has

plunged 13

points in Iowa

Fifty-eight mayors announced

their endorsements of Pete Butti-

gieg, giving the South Bend, Ind.,

mayor a boost of institutional sup-

port for his presidential campaign.

In a USA Today op-ed, the cur-

rent and former mayors, includ-

ing some who already have pub-

licly backed Buttigieg, called for “a

great mayor in the White House.”

The column — written by May-

ors Steve Adler of Austin, Texas;

Christopher Cabaldon of West Sac-

ramento, Calif.; and Nan Whaley of

Dayton, Ohio — emphasizes But-

tigieg’s bipartisan credentials and

executive experience.

“We endorse him from heart-

land towns, coastal cities, subur-

ban communities, and every other

corner of our great country,” the

mayors wrote. “What’s more, in

the spirit of the community of

mayors, we are already offering

Pete our best ideas and helping

engage grassroots supporters all

across the country.”

A lthough most of the mayors are

white, Buttigieg picked up some

key endorsements from mayors of

color, a constituency of voters with

whom Buttigieg has struggled to

make headway, including in the

key-primary state of South Caro-

lina. Buttigieg picked up his first

endorsement from a Hispanic of-

ficial: Mayor Michelle De La Isla of

Topeka, Kan., the city’s first Latina

mayor. Former Mayor Sly James of

Kansas City, Mo., and Mayor Mark

Barbee of Bridgeport, Pa., both of

whom are black, also signed on to

the endorsement.

Several mayors also hail from

early nominating states, including

Ryan Arndorfer of Britt, Iowa, and

Suzanne Prentiss of Lebanon, N.H.

Another notable nod came from

Breea Clark, mayor of Norman,

Okla., hometown of Sen. Elizabeth

Wa r ren.

BY ELENA SCHNEIDER

Nearly 60 mayors and ex-mayors endorse Buttigieg

WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
Kamala Harris has fallen to
sixth place in Iowa in the 2020
Democratic presidential primary.

LOS ANGELES — Pete Buttigieg ap-

peared to smother Beto O’Rourke in

the early stages of the presidential

primary, captivating viral media

attention and surging in primary

polls just as O’Rourke stalled.

Now comes Round Two, as the

two youthful Democrats, in need to

regain a step in the primary, have

begun tangling over guns.

The spat — which gained airtime

on cable TV over the weekend and

spilled into this week — pits two

fresh-faced, telegenic candidates

facing a transitional moment in

their campaigns. Buttigieg, who’s

plateaued in national polling, is

looking to assemble a campaign

in keeping with the staggering

$25 million he raised last quarter.

O’Rourke, who’s languished in

low single-digit support, is trying

to recapture his early mojo with

a passionate crusade to curb gun

violence.

After the debate last week at

which O’Rourke called for man-

datory government buybacks of

assault weapons, Buttigieg was

asked on CNN whether O’Rourke

was “playing into the hands of

Republicans.”

“Yes,” Buttigieg answered.

“We have agreement among the

American people for not just uni-

versal background checks, but we

have a majority in favor of red flag

laws, high capacity magazines,

banning the new sale of assault

weapons. This is a golden moment

to finally do something because

we’ve been arguing about this for as

long as I’ve been alive. W hen even

this president and even Mitch Mc-

Connell are at least pretending to

be open to reforms. We know that

we have a moment on our hands.

Let’s make the most of it and get

these things done.”

“Well, sh--,” O’Rourke respond-

ed, hours later, tearing into candi-

dates he said are “triangulating,

poll-testing, focus-group driving

their response,” adding that “Don-

ald Trump and Mitch McConnell

pretending to be interested in some-

thing that is literally a life-or-death

issue ... is simply not enough.”

Then, after Trump said this

week that he would not consider a

universal background checks bill

passed by the House, the former

Texas congressman rubbed it in.

“Exactly,” O’Rourke said, when

asked during a campaign stop on

Tuesday about Trump’s spurning

of Democrats on gun control. “And

Pete even admitted that T rump was

only pretending, so why would you

change your position, or moderate

your position to meet someone

who’s only pretending halfway.”

Asked in South Carolina about

O’Rourke’s recent criticisms, But-

tigieg said Tuesday he’s “focused

on what we can do right now, be-

cause I don’t think we can wait.”

He also said he “could care less”

how Republicans might react to

gun control reforms and that he’s

“talking not just about politics, but

about governing” and “what we can

do right now.”

Buttigieg has “consistently”

supported background checks on

gun sales, an assault weapons ban

and red flag laws, said campaign

spokesman Chris Meagher.

O’Rourke isn’t the only Democrat

supportive of mandatory buybacks.

Kamala Harris said on Jimmy Fal-

lon’s “Tonight Show” on Monday

that a buyback program is a “good

idea,” and Cory Booker supports

such a proposal.

But O’Rourke is pressing the case

for buybacks most forcefully, and

the opportunity to draw a contrast

with Buttigieg is especially signifi-

cant to his campaign. O’Rourke

and Buttigieg are battling to be the

choice of voters seeking a genera-

tional change. They are also young,

white men who lean less heavily on

their résumés than on their biogra-

phies and next-generation appeal.

It’s not clear what effect this

sparring might have on their poll-

ing. A CNN national poll last week

found O’Rourke at 5 percent, while

a Morning Consult survey on Mon-

day had him at 4 percent, just 1 per-

centage point behind Buttigieg. But

in an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll

released Tuesday, O’Rourke failed

to register above 1 percent, while

Buttigieg rose to 7 percent.

But the back-and-forth may ul-

timately help both candidates as

they struggle for oxygen in a pri-

mary dominated by the three top-

polling candidates.

“Pete’s trying to, and has been

all along, positioning himself as a

pragmatic progressive. ... Beto has

become a missionary for a cause,

to stop gun violence, which is re-

ally admirable [but] the politics of

that, and Beto knows this, are more

complicated than that,” said David

Axelrod, who served as chief strate-

gist for President Barack Obama.

“In this fight, it probably serves

both their purposes.”

It’s also a reminder that “Beto

was going to be the ‘next genera-

tion’ candidate, and Pete usurped

that space, so it’s not surprising to

see this back-and-forth,” Axelrod

added.

Watch i n g O’Rou rke a nd B ut-

tigieg sparring, one Democratic

strategist involved with another

presidential campaign scoffed,

“Isn’t this like the Spiderman

meme, where the two spidermen

are pointing at each other?”

“They’re just two very similar

characters trying to carry a very

similar space in this battle,” he

added.

O’Rourke’s supporters privately

acknowledged their glee in the re-

emergence of headlines featuring

their candidate’s name alongside

Buttigieg’s. Many O’Rourke loyal-

ists still grouse about the day this

spring when Buttigieg, gently chid-

ing O’Rourke for his habit at the time

of standing on chairs and tables, told

a crowd in New Hampshire, “I heard

the way you ingratiate yourself to

voters is to stand on things, so I

found this park bench here.”

And they know that slicing into

Buttigieg could help O’Rourke’s

cause now.

“The reality is that Buttigieg has

been thought of in a higher tier or

strata than O’Rourke ... and there’s

usually very little value in punch-

ing down,” said Chris Lippincott,

a Texas-based consultant who

ran a super PAC opposing Sen.

Ted Cruz in O’Rourke’s near-miss

Senate campaign last year. “[But]

O’Rourke has elevated his idea

and his campaign with this policy

proposal, and that will force other

candidates to respond.”

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who

has endorsed Buttigieg, said the

Indiana mayor is “doing his best

to deescalate the confrontation”

because “he wants to stay focused

on the bigger picture.”

“Ninety-eight percent [of the

time] Pete and Beto agree,” Beyer

said. “It’s a difference between

what’s possible in the near term, the

next two years, and what’s possible

over 10 years or more.”

It’s also a stylistic contrast “be-

tween a mayor, whose main empha-

sis is on figuring out really specific,

concrete things to advance the ball,

and a legislator, who is speaking in,

perhaps, more aspirational terms,”

said Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who

endorsed Buttigieg over his fellow

Texan.

Gun control activists are split

on whether mandatory buyback

programs would prove as effective

as other reforms like background

checks and red flag laws. But a

spokesman for Everytown for Gun

Safety told Fox News that though

“presidential candidates are talk-

ing about a number of policies to

address gun violence in America,”

background checks and a federal

red flag laws “need to be the Sen-

ate’s first priorities.”

O’Rourke drew newfound at-

tention after the mass shooting at

a Walmart in his hometown of El

Paso, Texas, including for his man-

datory buyback proposal.

Democratic strategist Mathew

Littman, a former Biden speech-

writer who works on gun reform

issues, said Democrats should

“start on the areas that we agree

upon” on gun control, including

universal background checks and

“red-flag” laws.

But Littman, who now backs

Kamala Harris in the primary,

said O’Rourke is “getting a lot of

attention now that he hadn’t been

getting previously.”

“He’s staked out a position in the

Democratic primary that is a little

bit different than everybody else’s,”

Littman said, “and he’s benefiting

from it.”

BY DAVID SIDERS

AND ELENA SCHNEIDER

Mayor Pete vs. Beto: The battle is back on

A spat over gun

control has revived the

rivalry between the

next-gen hopefuls

GETTY IMAGES PHOTOS

Mayor Pete Buttigieg (left) and ex-Rep. Beto O’Rourke have claimed distinct

positions on gun control: Buttigieg favors a mixture of popular policy fixes,

while O’Rourke advocates a mandatory assault weapon buyback.