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After sitting through hours of arguments in the impeachment trial of President Trump on Monday, where his legal team focused on how Biden’s son, Hunter, had nabbed a lucrative position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Ernst approached a microphone in the basement of the Senate.
“Iowa caucuses are this next Monday evening,” she said. “And I’m really interested to see how this discussion today informs and influences the Iowa caucus voters, those Democratic caucusgoers. Will they be supporting Vice President Biden at this point?”
At an event in Muscatine on Tuesday, a handmade sign on the wall seemed to answer her directly: “Joni — We’re w/Joe.”
Biden responded to Ernst’s comments head-on, presenting them as proof that Trump’s team was using the impeachment trial to try to hobble his candidacy.
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“She spilled the beans,” Biden told the crowd, speaking in a room overlooking the Mississippi River on a gray winter day. “She just came out and flat said it. You know, the whole impeachment trial for Trump is just a political hit job to try to smear me, because he is scared to death to run against me, and he has good reason to be concerned.”
By late afternoon Tuesday, his team had sent a fundraising email from his campaign manager with the subject line “Hey Senator Joni Ernst, let me answer your question directly.” The campaign also released a digital ad highlighting Ernst’s comments and accusing Republicans of spreading “lies” about Biden.
The impeachment trial of Trump has paralyzed Washington and frozen much of the fluid 2020 Democratic field in amber, commanding nonstop news media attention and tethering the four senators in the race to Capitol Hill. But talk of impeachment has been largely absent from the campaign trail in Iowa in the final stretch before the state’s caucuses, including at Biden’s events.
Ernst was first elected to the Senate in 2014 in a victory that helped the Republicans take control of the chamber. As she gears up for her first reelection battle, she has the built-in advantage of running on the same ticket as Trump, who carried Iowa in 2016 by nearly 10 points, even after Barack Obama won the state twice.
So, could a shot from Iowa’s junior senator, launched from a microphone in the bowels of the Capitol in Washington, put the polarizing impeachment process in the minds of Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa?
The answer, as Biden campaigned in Iowa on Tuesday, seemed clear.
“She’s just mouthing everything that the president is saying,” said Donna Cantrell, 70, who came to see Biden in Muscatine. She plans to support him next week and said the president’s attacks would not persuade her otherwise.
“He’s a good person,” she said of Biden. “All the stuff that Trump keeps putting out there, investigating Burisma and all the stuff, it’s just the same thing, the same playbook he did with Hillary Clinton to ruin her.”
Michael Wehner, 66, was similarly unmoved. He said he had been leaning toward supporting Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, but was impressed by Biden.
“I don’t think much about anything Joni Ernst says,” he said. The scrutiny of Hunter Biden did not give him any pause, he added.
“The fact that he took that job was ill thought out,” Wehner said. Still, he said, “It’s been investigated so deeply and there’s nothing there. It’s just a distraction away from what the president has done.”
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Interviews with a half dozen Democratic county chairs in Iowa similarly cast doubt on whether impeachment would be on the minds of caucusgoers as they decide among the Democratic candidates.
“It has zero effect on actual caucus voters,” said Brian Bruening, the chair of the Clayton County Democrats in northeast Iowa. “I don’t know any Joe Biden supporter whose support of Biden has lessened because of any of the impeachment issues.”
Sue Dvorsky, a former chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, argued that Ernst’s comments would hurt her in the election by energizing the Democratic base.
“She’s calling out Democratic activists to look at her,” Dvorsky said. “Like, oh, sister. Are you sure? Are you sure you want to be the face of this?”
As for Biden, she said that Trump’s attacks had both accentuated the Biden campaign’s argument that the president worries about facing him in a general election and offered a clear preview of how the president would attack him.
“One of his residential addresses is inside Trump’s head,” she said. “Does that help? Sure. Is it a double-edged sword? Yes, of course it is.”
Ernst, who also sent a fundraising appeal based on her Monday remarks, offered a different take on Twitter on Tuesday. She wrote that Biden “thinks my comments prove his point” regarding Trump.
“Wrong,” she added. “Yesterday the president’s counsel showcased that the Bidens were knee deep in corruption. Corruption isn’t good politics nor is it good for the American people.”
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As the impeachment proceedings have ramped up, Biden has been hammering the argument that he is the candidate Trump fears most.
“You Iowa caucusgoers have a chance for a twofer here,” Biden said in Muscatine. “You can ruin Donald Trump’s night by caucusing for me, and you can ruin Joni Ernst’s night as well.”
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Kevin Gleaves, who came out to see Biden, appeared eager to follow the former vice president’s instructions — at least in part.
“I will certainly support whoever the Democrats nominate for president,” said Gleaves, 71, who backs Warren but rebuffed Ernst nonetheless. “I will actively support whoever’s up against Joni Ernst. I will give that person my time, my money, my soul.”
The Iowa Senate race is crucial to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Senate. And Theresa Greenfield, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s preferred candidate in the primary, wasted no time capitalizing on Ernst’s remarks.
“Sounds like you’re focused on the wrong election, Senator,” she tweeted Monday evening alongside a call for donations.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .