Hillary Clinton and her Democratic rivals are coming soon to Iowa’s famed Surf Ballroom.
Four Democratic presidential candidates are set to appear together on the same stage next month in Clear Lake, Iowa, inside the iconic music hall where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper played their final show in 1959 before dying in a plane crash nearby.
The Surf Ballroom is a frequent stop on the campaign trail for presidential candidates of both parties. The Democratic hopefuls, including Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chafee, will join Clinton on Aug. 14, organizers told CNN.
The candidates will appear at the Iowa Wing Ding, an annual gathering for Democratic activists from 23 counties across northern Iowa, a key part of the state for campaigns trying to build support for the Iowa caucuses. President Obama is among the long list of Democrats who have previously appeared at the event, where politics is served with a side of chicken wings.
Dean Genth, a local Democratic activist, told CNN on Tuesday that the four presidential candidates have confirmed their attendance. Genth hosted Clinton at his home in nearby Mason City for one of her early Iowa campaign appearances this year. He billed the event as the “largest-ever gathering of Democratic Party faithful” at the Surf Ballroom.
While Clinton is the front-runner in the Democratic field, the event is the latest sign of how aggressively she is campaigning with her rivals and not taking her campaign for granted in Iowa, where she finished third in the 2008 caucuses.
