Mere weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Hillaryland is grappling with the very real possibility that Clinton could once again lose the state to an upstart challenger. The New York Times reports that a full 90 percent of the campaign’s resources have been divided between Iowa and its Brooklyn headquarters (a statistic the campaign denies), the goal being to bury Bernie Sanders early on—but the campaign is now adjusting to a primary race that could extend far into the spring.
Meanwhile, Politico reports that Clinton’s camp now sees South Carolina—with its prevalence of African-American voters—as an “early-state bulwark” to blunt Sanders’s momentum should he win both Iowa and New Hampshire.
All of which makes you wonder: What if Warren—a progressive with greater name recognition among Democratic voters than Sanders, and a woman to boot—had decided to make a run? It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which Warren gives Clinton an even tougher primary fight. Warren at this point must be imagining what might have been.