WATERLOO, Iowa—Hillary Clinton has spent much of her presidential campaign looking past Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, focusing instead on Republicans and the November general election. No longer.
Three weeks before the lead-off Iowa caucuses and with polls suggesting a tightening race, she now is confronting the Vermont senator more directly, attempting to undermine his liberal credentials on gun control, health care and even the Wall Street regulations that have been the core of his insurgent campaign.
“It’s time for us to have the kind of spirited debate that you deserve us to have,” Clinton told voters on Monday. “We do have differences.”
After months with a comfortable edge in most Iowa polls, the former secretary of state finds herself battling an underdog rival in a state that has a history of rewarding anti-establishment campaigns—a situation that brings back echoes of her 2008 loss to Barack Obama.
While she has locked up the vast majority of support from party leaders and large donors, Sanders has captured the hearts of many in the Democratic base with his unapologetically liberal economic message.
An NBC/The Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Sunday found Clinton with 48 percent and Sanders with 45 percent of likely caucus goers, representing a closer margin than past polls have indicated.
