O'Malley gains, Clinton warms, some in Iowa focus group say.
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley’s performance in Saturday’s debate convinced a handful of longtime Democratic voters to give the former governor a more serious look this caucus season.
During a focus group hosted and organized by KCCI-TV, 17 voters, nine of them Drake University students, watched the debate and provided their opinions on the evening’s happenings. Before show time, only two people raised their hands as possible O’Malley voters, but after the debate, five people said they were leaning toward O’Malley.
“O’Malley seemed a more realistic candidate than he ever has,” said Ryan Tunink, 20, a Drake student.
The former Maryland governor “did what he needed to do” to get noticed, said Michael Schrodt, 32, an O’Malley supporter before the debate.
“He made some strong hits against the other candidates,” Schrodt said. “He referred back to his experience and kept reminding people that he’d done what he talks about on the campaign trial. He threw some slight jabs in his closing statements regarding divisive personalities of the past and him being part of a new generation of Democrats, which I believe he is.”
For Benjamin Verhasselt, 21, who was leaning toward Sen. Bernie Sanders before the debate, O’Malley came out on top because he highlighted his role as a new and different leader in the party.
“I think he did a good job of emphasizing himself as an outsider, something we have seen Republicans do effectively,” he said. “His strongest argument is that, look, they have lived this for 30 or 40 years and I’m not an establishment candidate. He hasn’t been around all that time, but he still has experience.”
Verhasselt also liked that O’Malley used some of his response time early on to reference causes important to voting youth.
“He went right into the DREAM Act as well as the Black Lives Matter movement and those two together for a lot of black Iowans and Latino Iowans are very important,” Verhasselt continued. “There is a tremendous amount of momentum and support behind those causes and that is what O’Malley needs a lot of to move forward.” >>>
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/11/15/martin-omalley-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-kcci-focus-group-iowa-voters/75828476/
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