Joe Biden’s campaign on Tuesday said Iowa is not a must-win state on the former vice president’s path to the Democratic nomination and signaled that the campaign is already “ramping up” its Super Tuesday efforts.
“Do I think we have to win Iowa? No,” a senior adviser said in a background briefing to campaign reporters on Tuesday.
The adviser said Iowa, the first-in-the-nation caucus state, will be “critical.”“We think we’re going to win, we think it’s going to be a dogfight … But we think there are several candidates in this field, there’s probably three or four, that are going to go awhile.”
Biden advisers say they’ve laid the groundwork in early states but “are now ramping up for Super Tuesday and beyond,” and they have no expectation that Biden will leave the race after the first early state contests.
Campaign advisers underscored Biden’s lead in the polls and argued he held the “broadest reach” of any of his competitors in the 2020 field. Advisers also said that, looking beyond the four early states and the Super Tuesday contests, Biden has the best chance of winning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan in the general election.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine