The Candidate Dividing Iowa Progressives
Politically speaking, Marie Herring, a 49-year-old supporter of Elizabeth Warren, and John Thomas Grindle, a 36-year-old Bernie Sanders fan, have a lot in common.
Both Iowans want Medicare for All, student-debt cancellation, and a government that taxes the heck out of billionaires. Neither harbors ill will toward the other lefty firebrand in the race. But the two voters feel very differently about one 2020 Democrat: South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
“Definitely, I like him,” Herring told me. “He’s a rising star.”
To Grindle, though, Buttigieg is just “another corporate puppet.”
For the past several months, the trio of Warren, Sanders, and former Vice President Joe Biden has been leading the polls in the state with the first-in-the-nation caucuses. But over the past few weeks, 37-year-old Buttigieg has been gaining ground: The most recent surveys of Iowa voters have shown the Indiana Democrat at or near of the pack of primary candidates.
