Warren impresses during the first election campaign, but questions arise about his eligibility

Of course, she did not have to compete with any of them, because her campaign start assured her of having the state alone.

But a question from a member of the audience about the failed roll of his DNA test, as well as doubts about whether she can beat Trump, have reminded anyone that no one will be able to easily gain access to the Democratic nomination in 2020.

"She will be recognized as currently leading the pack," said Heather Matson, who toppled a Republican state legislator in November and participated in an event with Warren on Saturday. "But I think that all presidential candidates and wishing to spend time in Iowa know that it will be a person-by-person contest."

Talking Oklahoma, Not Harvard

Warren has used his re-election campaign in the 2018 Senate to refine his speech and build the biggest war chest of all potential hopes for 2020 at $ 12.5 million.

The practice in Massachusetts, which included a trentai No town halls, paid off this weekend in Iowa, where she anchored country rallies while fighting. Cold, she said that she had picked up her "petri dishes" during her holidays.

People queued before dawn in freezing weather to make sure they could come to Sioux City on Saturday morning. Many of them were turned back at the door once the event reached.

Large crowds followed her as she headed east to Storm Lake, then to Des Moines, where the line extended around the block to twice in the embarrassing East Village of the capital.

"There are 1,000 people here," said Megan Suhr, chair of the Marion County Democratic Party. "I was standing in line for a Dave Grohl show two weeks ago and there were 1,000 people."

Warren is probably best known nationally as a Massachusetts Liberal, like Ted Kennedy, a mentor of whom she currently holds the seat in the Senate. Former Harvard law professor turned consumer rights advocate.

But in Iowa, Warren's speech on the stub had almost entirely ignored this part of his resume, focusing instead on his difficult education in Oklahoma, where he did not go to school. had not enough money to send her to university and her mother had to find a minimum wage job late in life after a heart attack at her father's.

"I'm probably the most unlikely senator you can find," Warren told Ankeny.

She recounted his decision to leave school at 19 hours. get married – "smart," she joked. And she joked that she was proud to have helped convert one of her three older brothers, all of whom became military, to the Democratic Party.

"When I first heard about the strain, I felt exactly where I grew up and the difficulties with which I grew up," said JD Scholten, a Democrat which drew national attention for his unsuccessful campaign against conservative representative Steve King, R-Iowa, last year. "As for Iowans, we do not get ourselves done often enough, and this factor" X "and this authenticity are really important."

Scholten was impressed by the fact that Warren had chosen to start his campaign in the conservative and rural campaign. Western areas of the state, where Democrats often do not care to campaign. "We are becoming this Whole Foods urban and peri-urban party and I live in a" Dollar General "zone.Most of the reasons I'm a Democrat are why she's a Democrat," he said. .

Christie Vilsack, the wife of former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, and a Democratic Party supporter for rural areas, said Warren in touch with voters.

"Yes, she's a Harvard professor, but she's also a teacher," Vilsack said. "I think that will please, because in Iowa, most women are still teachers.If they work, it is the work that was available for many of them and that still exists. in many small towns. "

Warren avoids settling in Iowa for years, fearing to fuel presidential speculation.

This left her a little behind potential rivals such as Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Sanders, who had visited Iowa last year. to attract Democratic candidates to the mid-term elections.

But prior to this trip, Warren's fledgling campaign announced the hiring of several Iowa's reputable agents, some of whom had worked for Sanders in 2016, with whom she was heading to an unavoidable position.

Warren's national campaign is likely to be based in Boston, where many new associates will join his sequel, such as Joe Rospars, Barack Obama's digital guru in 2008, who founded Blue State Digital. of the biggest online businesses that work for Democrats.

"We are in the fourth quarter of primary enrollment and will end up with one of the best field strengths," said Jerry Crawford, a Democratic power broker from Iowa who advised several campaigns . "There are probably in Iowa 20 or 25 senior executives who have experience with the caucus process and really understand it, and she has hired about a quarter."

But Crawford also warned Warren. [19659007] "Iowans is going to be very concerned about eligibility and it's a hurdle she still has to go through," he said.

Sex and Age

Warren's team knows that convincing people that it can defeat Trump will be one of its leaders. Challenges in Iowa and beyond – although no one really knows what "eligibility" looks like in the scrambled politics of the Trump era.

Warren will have to be the subject of special scrutiny because of his gender, his age and his ideology of left, In addition to the fact that Trump has already targeted him, especially for questions about his Amerindian heritage.

"Why did you undergo DNA testing and give Donald Trump more food to become a bully?" a woman asked Warren in Sioux City.

The manipulation of the DNA test, which showed that Warren most likely had distant American ancestors, was widely criticized, including by Native American tribes.

Warren gave an answer similar to the one she already gave, which will probably not solve the question. "My decision was, I'll just put everything forward," Warren said to the woman. "I can not stop Donald Trump from doing what he's going to do, I can not stop him from launching racial slurs."

And many Democrats are wondering if the appointment of another white woman of the same age as Hillary Clinton (Warren is 69 years old) is the right move for the party.

Nancy Bower, a teacher, said that she loved Clinton and Warren and thought the two were going to make great presidents – but not necessarily great candidates for the presidency.

"I just do not think our country is ready for a woman, especially for an older woman," she said, "I want to win."

Warren's campaign seemed to anticipate such questions and tacitly addressed them to an event featuring women who ran and won campaigns in Iowa last year.

The state is notoriously difficult for women candidates in the past, and Iowa was one of the last states in the country to send a woman to Congress.In November, voters in Iowa elected a record number of 45 women in the state legislature and sent two new Democratic women to the United States House of Representatives.

"In 2012, people had said that Massachusetts would elect not a woman in the US Senate. We organized, fought and won, "said Warren.