Bernie Sanders Begins Iowa Tour to Court Trump Voters

Candidate aims to woo Democrats who switched sides in 2016
Sanders hopes to show he can help party win back Rust Belt

Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 21.Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

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By Emma Kinery

September 23, 2019 at 8:00 AM UTC

Updated on

September 23, 2019 at 4:41 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Bernie Sanders hopes to convince working-class voters who were drawn to Donald Trump in 2016 that they will find a lot to like with his own brand of economic populism.

Sanders took this strategy for a trial run on Monday with a “Bernie Beats Trump Tour” of a half-dozen Iowa counties that went for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and to Trump in 2016. The goal is to prove that he is the candidate best able to woo back working-class voters in Rust-Belt states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, longtime Democratic strongholds that were captured by Trump and that are key to winning the presidency.