As Iowa Looms, The Democratic Primary Gets More Negative

With the Iowa caucus just weeks away, some in the Democratic primary are firing off personal attacks.

The tension between Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), highlighted at the last debate, spilled over into the weekend as Sanders addressed a comment he allegedly made to Warren telling her that a woman couldn’t be elected President (he has denied saying it; she confirmed it).

In an interview with New Hampshire public radio Sunday, Sanders said that he does believe gender is an obstacle for female candidates.

“But I think everybody has their own sets of problems,” he said. “I’m 78 years of age. That’s a problem. . . . If you’re looking at Buttigieg, he’s a young guy, people will say, ‘well, he’s too young to be President. You look at this one, she’s a woman.’ So everybody, you know, brings some negatives.”

“I would just hope very much that the American people look at the totality of a candidate,” he continued. “Not at their gender, not at their sexuality, not at their age. But at everything. Nobody is perfect. There ain’t no perfect candidate out there.”

In an unrelated spat, Sanders went after former Vice President Joe Biden with a video on Biden’s stance on social security. According to the Washington Post, Biden has called the video “doctored,” though he seems to mean that his comments were taken out of context. Sanders acknowledged that the clip should have included fuller context of Biden’s comments, but insists that voters look at his record.

The Sanders campaign also launched an anti-Biden op-ed attack Monday, accusing the former Vice President of having a “corruption problem.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been taking the fight to former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, slamming him for skipping the early voting states and for declining to release documentation of his personal finances until after Super Tuesday.

“Think about this: If he has entanglements with China, serious conflicts of interest, business interests in other parts of the world or other corporations,” she said per the Post, “when are we going to know about that? Not until after Super Tuesday. That is not how democracy is supposed to work, and we need to shut that down.”

The tension comes as multiple candidates are bunched together in the Iowa polling, desperate to pull ahead of the pack. The candidates have two weeks to change the narrative and see how the negative attacks will play with key constituencies.