Vice President Joe Biden is traveling to Iowa on Thursday with the official purpose of pushing the administration’s policies outlined in the 2015 State of the Union address.
But as is the case in Iowa a year before a presidential election, no visit is without a healthy helping of presidential speculation. And the vice president is no exception. Even to his closest friends and former advisers in the state, Biden’s visit is seen is seen as having more than one purpose.
“I don’t think it is a coincidence that he is coming to Iowa as opposed to, say, Arizona, where I assume they also have community colleges,” said Sara Riley, a lawyer from Cedar Rapids who worked on Biden’s 2008 campaign and remains loyal to him today.
Iowa, because of its first-in-the-nation caucus status, is critical to presidential hopefuls. The vice president last visited the Hawkeye State in October for an event with then-Iowa Senate candidate Bruce Braley. Biden also visited the state in September for an event in Des Moines with Nuns on the Bus, a group of liberal Catholic nuns who convey their message of social justice on road trips.
Riley acknowledged the event was for official White House purposes, but said that because Biden is the vice president, he can come to Iowa for official reasons and “still be on all the covers of the papers.”
Biden will make two stops in the Des Moines area on Thursday. He will first visit Drake University to “deliver remarks on the administration’s economic policies at Drake University,” according to a release from the vice president’s office. He will then participate in a roundtable discussion at Des Moines Area Community College’s Ankeny Campus.
The roundtable will “focus on the importance of helping more Americans go to college and the critical role that partnerships between community colleges and employers can play in helping Americans obtain the skills they need to succeed in the workforce.”
Before visiting Iowa, however, a small circle of Biden’s former advisers and friends were notified of the trip, raising questions about whether one purpose of the visit was to remind supporters and voters that he was still considering a run a the presidency in 2016.
“This is the season in Iowa, so everyone looks hard at visitors to the state,” said Teri Goodman, a longtime Biden family friend and Iowa supporter. “Iowa Democrats are eager for this caucus season to begin. So his appearance is going to fuel that longing by the part of Iowa Democrats for the discussion to begin.”
Some Iowa Democrats have grown concerned with how frozen the field has become at the prospect that frontrunner Hillary Clinton will get in. In 2008, the last time there was a competitive Democratic primary, a number of candidates were already in, including Barack Obama and Clinton.
The vice president’s supporters are among those that wish there was more Democratic action in Iowa right now.
“Many times, these campaigns are not just about who is going to be president but also the public discussion about issues of the day,” said Goodman. “Iowans long for that discussion.”
Biden has said “there’s a chance” he would challenge Clinton, who is all but certain to seek the Democratic nomination. And many in Iowa expect him to make his decision by late spring or early summer.
Polls show Clinton as the local favorite. Some even have her up as many as 56 percentage points, with Biden in the low double-digits.
But Biden’s Iowa diehards dismiss most polling numbers as nothing more than name recognition and still give the vice president as strong change if he gets in.