Hillary Clinton’s first campaign trip to Iowa has included meetings with state activists, students and coffee shop patrons. On Wednesday afternoon, Democratic lawmakers will be added to that list.
Clinton will meet with the state’s top Democratic lawmakers at a special meeting of the Democratic caucus Wednesday at the Iowa Capitol, according to two top Iowa Democratic officials.
The meeting has not yet been announced to all lawmakers or staff, but will be this morning. Clinton is being billed as a “special guest” to the Wednesday meeting.
According to the sources, Attorney General Tom Miller and State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald — both Democratic lawmakers who backed then-Sen. Barack Obama over Clinton eight years ago — will be at the event.
“I think Iowa is certainly ready for Hillary,” Miller told CNN. “Her low-key approach is the right idea to start out. It gives her a chance to show more of her human side.”
Miller, who was among the earliest supporters for Obama in 2008, said Clinton’s third-place finish shouldn’t dog her this time around. He said the landscape is entirely different and Democrats have no Obama-like figure in the race.
“She didn’t lose it, he won it,” Miller said. “She lost to then and now an incredible candidate who ran a magical campaign to beat her. I don’t think there was anybody who could have beaten Barack in 2008.”
Clinton’s meeting will come after the former secretary of state holds a roundtable with small business owners at a fruit wholesaler outside of Des Moines on her second day campaigning as a declared candidate.
Clinton spent much of Tuesday driving across Iowa. She stopped at a coffee shop in Le Claire — in the east of the state — where she greeted patrons and joked that she was going to “drink her way” across the state. She then stopped at a community college in Monticello, for a roundtable with students and administrators, where she was met by more press than Iowans.
Clinton is expected to leave Iowa on Wednesday night.