Lisa Lerer, Sydney Ember and Reid J. Epstein

“Do you like being the front-runner?” a reporter shouted Thursday afternoon. “What about calling President Trump a white supremacist, like Senator Elizabeth Warren did?”

“You just want me to say the words so I sound like everybody else,” Biden said, a flash of anger in his voice. “I’m not everybody else. I’m Joe Biden. I’m staying the way I am.”

This summer has been full of predictions about an early Biden demise as a presidential candidate, be it from a poor debate performance or some gaffes, like his comment Thursday that “poor kids” are just as bright as “white kids.” But Biden has rebounded repeatedly, maintaining a commanding, crowd-drawing position in the contest.

Now, as he works to solidify that lead, a new political dynamic is energizing and clarifying the purpose of Sens. Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and the rest of the Democratic field: To emerge as the leading rival to the former vice president.

Nowhere is that more apparent than the state fairgrounds this week in Iowa, home to the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. Nearly two dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls are descending on the fair for a packed schedule of cattle calls, bus tours and America’s best selection of fried food on sticks.

If a formidable rival is to emerge to Biden, political watchers say, it is likely to happen in Iowa. Many of the state’s most influential Democrats remain highly skeptical of Biden, with county chairs, activists and other officials questioning the depth of his support and the breadth of his campaign presence in the state. Other candidates are increasingly spending time and resources here, in hopes of laying groundwork to damage the front-runner early in Iowa, like Hillary Clinton experienced with her surprise third-place finish here in 2008.

The most recent Iowa poll showed Biden on top but Warren surging to second and Harris also gaining support. At the same time, Sanders, who parlayed a near-win in Iowa into fuel for his insurgent primary campaign in 2016, has fallen into the single digits as others in the crowded field seize the mantle of his message.

The strengths of the leading alternatives to Biden are coming into sharper view this summer in Iowa. Warren, by nearly all accounts, has the strongest and most active political organization, having started building her operation during the 2018 midterm elections. Harris has benefited from a much-lauded performance in the first debate; Iowa polls show she has high favorability numbers, an indication that people may be open to shifting their support to her.

And despite recent disappointing polls, Sanders is well-established as a grassroots force, continuing to command respect among plenty of progressive Democrats — but certainly not all — because of his 2016 campaign’s success.

Still, Sanders’ decline, such a contrast from his unexpected support in Iowa in 2016, underscores just how fluid the race remains in the state — and how voters here are still searching for their Democratic standard-bearer.

Ed Fallon, a climate change activist who backed Sanders three years ago, said he questioned whether the Vermont senator was still the best messenger for the party.

“Bernie Sanders has defined the agenda in this campaign,” said Fallon, 61, as he waited on Thursday evening to hear Biden at a union hall in Des Moines. “But I’m not sure he’s the one to carry it forward at this point.”

More than any other event, it is the 10-day Iowa fair that marks the unofficial start of the critical fall campaign season. It’s a period when the field is likely to narrow as fewer candidates qualify for the upcoming debates, campaign coffers begin to dwindle and voters begin paying closer attention to the race.

Voters from across Iowa flock to the State Fairgrounds on Des Moines’ East Side to see prizewinning produce, sample delicacies like “bacon-wrapped pig wings” and check out a cow sculpted out of 800 pounds of butter.

Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, in jeans and a navy button-down shirt, delighted a crowd with his familial ties to the state.

“I know you’ll get dozens of people trying to make some attenuated connection to Iowa,” he boomed at the fair’s political soapbox, a preelection year tradition. “So I’m not going to tell you that my great, great-grandparents settled in Henry County in 1850.” The audience howled appreciatively.

He later proved his fair bona fides by hurling himself, alongside his children, down an enormous yellow carnival slide.

Touring the cattle barns Friday, also with his children in tow, former Housing Secretary Julián Castro smiled as his preschool-age son, fascinated by the long line of cattle, asked if the family could get their own cow.

And Biden indulged in an ice cream, a fact he recounted multiple times for voters — and the press.

Biden has made more visits to Iowa than any of the other four early voting states, according to a New York Times analysis. A rocky performance in the June debate and his lackluster response to attacks in the July debate did little to shake his standing in the race.

But Biden’s dominance in the Hawkeye state is far from assured. National and early state polling show his strongest base of support among older and black voters, groups that have been less dominant in the Iowa caucuses than they are elsewhere.

Supporters of rival campaigns often reference former President Barack Obama’s campaign as a template, pointing out that his campaign invested significant early resources in the state but polls did not begin trending in Obama’s favor until late 2007.

His come-from-behind win in the state helped the then-Illinois senator overcome a double digit deficit in national polls and convinced black voters that he could be a viable contender for the White House.

A victory, or even simply exceeding expectations in the early caucus state, would send a candidate into the rest of the primary contest with a burst of momentum.

Though many voters say they feel warmly about the man people call “Uncle Joe,” some say they want to learn more about the rest of the field, particularly candidates who have spent less time on the national stage.

“Joe Biden is my No. 1 right now,” Jodi Osthes, a math teacher from Des Moines, said as she trailed her children through the fairgrounds. “But I need to see how it all shakes out over the next few months.”

Biden’s competitors are eager to make inroads, trotting out brand-new campaign buses, RVs, and caravans to crisscross the state this weekend.

Warren is touring Iowa in a Warren-themed RV that instructs nearby motorists, “Honk if you’re ready for big, structural change!”

Before beginning her Iowa swing, Warren unveiled new policy plans on rural America and the farm economy. Her stops have included surveying flood damage and visiting a farm in western Iowa.

Harris, meanwhile, focused her first stop in the state squarely on Trump. “Let’s talk a little about the current occupant of the White House,” she said at a rally in Sioux City overlooking the Missouri River.

She will spend five days traversing the state in a giant bus wrapped with her name — KAMALA — spelled out in her campaign colors of yellow, a purplish blue and red.

“Look at my bus! Oh my God, I love it!” she exclaimed upon seeing the bus.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is also building up a staff in Iowa, where he excited Democrats this summer but has seen his poll numbers level off in recent weeks.

While Biden’s campaign says it has 75 staffers working in the state, activists, strategists and party leaders in the state describe his operation as far less visible than those of his rivals.

In the state’s swath of rural counties, local officials report that Warren aides and field organizers are in constant contact, appearing at the sort of local party meetings that draw single-digit audiences.

Asked in private conversations who would win the caucuses if they were held this month, the vast majority of Iowa Democratic officials and strategists say it would be Warren.

“As I go around the state and talk to people, I ask activists, ‘Who are you seeing the most from and who do you hear from and who’s surprising you?’ The answer to all those is Elizabeth Warren,” said Matt Paul, an unaffiliated, Iowa Democratic strategist who ran Hillary Clinton’s 2016 effort in the state. “Her organization is deep. They’re hyper-organized.”

Rachel Bly, the Democratic chairwoman of Poweshiek County, a rural area that includes the liberal bastion of Grinnell College, said she hadn’t seen or heard from Biden.

“He hasn’t been present here at all and neither have his staff,” Bly said. “Biden has barely been in touch.”

The famously voluble Biden also continues to face significant unease about his ability to be a crisp messenger. Some of that anxiety is tied to questions about his agility: At 76, he is older than nearly all his primary rivals, except Sanders, who is 77.

In conversation, Biden’s age can come up as a liability. Kurtis Meyer, the Democratic chairman of Mitchell County, described running for president as a job interview, delivering this assessment of Biden’s chances: “I would look at his résumé for maybe 30 seconds and reach one obvious conclusion: remarkable qualifications, too old.”

“He’s pressing against Father Time, who is a very tough competitor,” said Meyer, who first met Biden in the 1970s.

Biden showed no signs of flagging stamina as he moved through the fair Thursday afternoon, bending down to give advice to two young sisters and steering the pack of reporters away from obstacles.

As Biden wrapped up his visit, he displayed a flash of his own convictions, snapping at an aide directing him to a waiting car: “I’ll go where I want to go.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/us/politics/biden-iowa-2020.html" id="15242112-b6bf-33fe-abc2-b94d8c18188e">The New York Times</a>.

DES MOINES, Iowa — The pack of cheering voters, sweating reporters and snapping cameras surrounding Joe Biden made its way through the Iowa State Fair like a pulsating amoeba, consuming everyone and everything in its path.

Can Anyone Catch Joe Biden?

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Lisa Lerer, Sydney Ember and Reid J. Epstein

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Can Anyone Catch Joe Biden?