As Democrats running for president pivot to New Hampshire after the debacle in Iowa, they have already spent much of this week in the Granite State trading grabs over which one of them can best tackle another, big crisis — climate change. The elbow-throwing was subtle at times, more pointed at others. What it shows is that Democratic candidates are heeding calls from the party base in New Hampshire to do something — anything — about what many of them see is an existential threat.
Climate change and the environment ranked as the most important issue among likely Democratic voters in the Feb. 11 primary, with 19 percent naming it in a CNN-University of New Hampshire poll conducted last month. That slightly ahead of health care (16 percent) and well ahead of beating President Trump and other Republicans (11 percent). Sensing that concern, several presidential candidates trekked from Iowa, where the state party is still trying to figure out just who won the caucus there, to New Hampshire to speak at a youth climate town hall in Concord on Wednesday.
There, the two moderates who beat expectations in Iowa — former South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) — vowed to undo President Trump’s many rollbacks of environmental regulations. But in veiled digs at their competitors to the left, each also emphasized what they see as the practicality of their plans.