WASHINGTON — Whether they’ve got their boots on the ground in Iowa or have shifted their ground game to the next election in New Hampshire, candidates are telling Americans in the country’s first big decision day why they should be president.
The Iowa caucuses on Monday are the first big voting day for this year’s presidential campaign. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg are the leading Democratic candidates seeking to challenge President Donald Trump.
Warren, visiting a caucus site in Des Moines, energetically rushed into the room and waved to people cheering before getting on a bullhorn.
“We have job number one in November: beat Donald Trump,” Warren told the crowd. “Job number two: elect Democrats up and down the ballot.”
As Monday night dragged on for the long-awaited voting results, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar addressed a crowd in Iowa before planning to head out for New Hampshire.
"We know that our party can't win big, by trying to out-divide the divider in chief," Klobuchar said. "With that same grit that got us through that blizzard, we are now ready to head to New Hampshire.”
Biden also came out to address voters. "We're in a battle for the soul of the nation, and that's not hyperbole," he said. "There's nothing that we've ever failed at, when we've tried to do it together."
Appearing at a precinct in West Des Moines, Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said it should be a standard that candidates people caucus for address them in-person.
“How else would you know that they care about you?” he joked to the voters before shifting his tone to serious. “I have a clear sense on what we have to do to actually move our communities and our country forward.”
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet was spending the Iowa caucuses with New Hampshire voters to hold his 47th town hall in the New England state.
He says he’s hoping to appeal to undecided New Hampshire voters who don’t believe the leading candidates can beat Trump.
Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg campaigned in California on Monday. In Compton, he said that he's made stops in almost half the states and and 60 cites as the others focus on Iowa. He said he'd like to think he's several steps ahead of his opponents, targeting the Super Tuesday states voting on March 3.
The Associated Press contributed.