DES MOINES, IOWA – Former vice-president Joe Biden, front runner nationally among the Democratic Party’s crowded field of contenders for the party’s nomination for president will face his first moment of truth late on Monday night (Jan 3) in Iowa when the results of the caucuses come in.

A strong finish will boost the credentials of what many see as a safe, middle of the road candidate but not one that particularly excites the Democratic base in a party split between what Mr Biden represents – a return to stability – and the stronger democratic socialist messages of candidates like senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Several attendees who streamed in to a Biden event at a high school in Des Moines, standing in snow-melt water in a line that stretched halfway around the building, said the key issue for them was to ensure President Donald Trump does not win re-election.

Corporate trainer Elana Centor, 68, who was visiting from Minnesota, said she had noticed that locals had been to multiple candidates’ events.

“It makes you feel good that people are taking it seriously and it is important to them,” she said. “The real issue is we have to get rid of Donald Trump.

“He is destroying our democracy. It sounds overly dramatic but from what just happened last week, it is really a dictatorship, and what has happened to our country, the fragility of it, in just three years, takes your breath away. I would love for Biden to win but I will support anyone.”

The reference to last week was to the trial of Mr Trump in the Senate, in which all but two Republicans voted in line with the party and the President, quashing the Democrats’ demand that witnesses be called to testify.

That paved the way for Mr Trump to be acquitted of the charges against him which the Democrat-controlled House had impeached him on – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Mr Alex Gordon, 50, an attorney from Virginia, told The Straits Times: “The biggest issue is beating Donald Trump. He has destroyed civility in our government, he has destroyed international relations and diplomacy, he has destroyed the norms of how the government is supposed to work.

“It is difficult to look at my sons and try to teach them about government when we have a President who doesn’t know the Constitution… (and) doesn’t know how to treat people with respect and civility.”

The other candidates have been staging multiple events a day in the run-up to the caucuses, and public interest has been high. Mr Sanders is narrowly leading in the state polls.

At the Biden event, student Olivia Lee, 23, said she was a Trump supporter and just wanted to hear what the other side had to say. “I’m going to vote for Trump,” she said.

“I really like the direction the country is going in,” she said, adding that she was not impressed by anything she had heard.

“If someone really impresses me, I can change my mind but honestly nothing I have seen has done that.”

Asked what her key disagreement was with the Democratic Party candidates, she zeroed in on healthcare, a major fault line in the 2020 campaign.

“I don’t want to see socialised medicine in the United States, I think it would be really hurtful to the healthcare industry” she said.

One attendee told ST after the event that he was not impressed by Mr Biden, who had spoken and met the crowd at the high school for around two hours.

Mr Biden’s repeated references to Mr Trump’s style and behaviour were somewhat like preaching to the choir, he said, asking not to be named.

“We know all that, and we agree” he said. “There were not enough specifics.

“I was undecided, but now I am going to support Elizabeth Warren.”

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