2020 Election: Democrats make veiled attack on Joe Biden's 'same old politics' as his lead slips in new poll

Democrats seeking to become the party’s 2020 presidential candidate have made a series of veiled attacks on frontrunner Joe Biden's “same old politics”, as a new poll showed the former vice president’s lead slipping.

After a week in which cracks appeared to show in the 76-year-old campaign amid controversy over his views about abortion, 19 of the more than 20 candidates appeared at an event in Iowa, where many of them took digs at Mr Biden, albeit without naming him

The attacks, delivered at at the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual summer fundraiser in Cedar Rapids, an important date on the political calendar Mr Biden was forced to miss because of family commitments, coincided with a poll published by the Des Moines Register showing his lead slipping. While he still led the field on 24 points, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren were in a statistical tie for second place, with support for Ms Warren having soared.

Both Mr Sanders and Mr Buttigieg were among those who used their five-minute speech before party officials to attack Mr Biden, a Democratic centrist who will travel to the state later this week.

Mr Sanders, who is among the most progressive of the candidates, claimed the “same old politics will not” defeat Donald Trump in November 2020.

“I understand there are some well-intentioned Democrats and candidates who believe the best way forward is a middle-ground strategy that antagonises no one, that stands up to nobody and that changes nothing,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “In my view, that approach is not just bad public policy, but it is a failed political strategy.”

Mr Buttigieg, the mayor South Bend, Indiana, mocked the idea of Democrats returning to views the party held in the 1990s. “We’re not going to win by playing it safe or promising a return to normal.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand hit a similar note.

“Now is not the time to be polite. Now is not the time for small steps,” she told the 1,400-strong audience.

The slip in the vice president’s lead came after what he suffered was widely considered a damaging week on the campaign trail. His aides said the former senator still supported the so-called Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds to provide abortion services.

But amid an outcry from activists, particularly some powerful women’s groups, Mr Biden declared his view had changed. He said he had changed position in light of the series of draconian anti-abortion measures being passed across the country, but many saw it simply as flip-flopping.

The poll was conducted between June 2-5, before Mr Biden felt obliged to change his views on abortion. But the results, published over the weekend, added to the narrative of a candidate whose campaign may already be starting to show some cracks

“We’re starting to see the people who are planning to caucus start to solidify,” said Ann Selzer, of Des Moines-based Selzer and Co, which conducted the poll. “And some of these candidates who’ve been under the radar start to surface and compete with Joe Biden.”

She described Ms Warren’s numbers as “a strong showing”.

“I think that all of the publicity lately and all of the polls lately are so Biden-heavy that for her to have any metric that shows her on par (with him)…it says to me there are people who are paying attention,” she told the Register. “Again, in a field this big, that’s step one. First, you have to get people to pay attention.”

The poll put senator Kamala Harris at seven points, with senator Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke both at two points. Seven candidates registered one per cent.

Ms Warren did not attack Mr Biden, something she did last week amid the controversy over his support for the Hyde ruling. However, she did make what appeared like a clear reference to his decision to accept campaign donations from large corporate donors.

“I'm not spending my time with high-dollar donors and with corporate lobbyists,“ she said. “That’s how we build a grassroots movement in America.”