Though her campaign has doubled its field offices in Iowa and recently brought on Norm Sterzenbach, a veteran Democratic strategist in the state, her operation is still relatively small. She also lacks Mr. Buttigieg’s fund-raising prowess, which could hinder her ability to compete with deeper-pocketed candidates in the race.
And scarred by Hillary Clinton’s loss to Mr. Trump in 2016, some Iowans say they are wary of nominating another woman. David Lange, 58, who came to hear Ms. Klobuchar in Osceola, said he thought she had “a chance to win,” citing her debate performances in particular. But though he said that he himself did not have any qualms about her, he voiced a broader concern: “I think there are still a fair number of people who won’t vote for a woman.”
At the same time, Ms. Klobuchar is plain-spoken in prescribing ways out of what she sees as the country’s ills, with a reach-across-the-aisle legislative record that continues to endear her to people in Iowa. She frequently leans on her wit, flecking her appearances with wry jokes — about her hair, about Mr. Trump — that often prompt appreciative laughs in return. In Creston, she began her remarks balanced on a step ladder — a gesture, it seemed, for people in the back — before professing a fear that she would fall off.
Mr. Buttigieg, on the other hand, is a carefully honed case, so consistently earnest he can come across as monochromatic. In recent days, he has begun speckling his remarks with more populist themes, like the value of work.
“I am running to be a president for the guy who’s up early in the morning in the dark scraping the windshield on his way to the first of the jobs that he is going to do over the course of the day,” he said in Indianola. “Who’s standing up for him?”
His message, at once reliably patriotic and steeped with the conviction that America can do better, has lifted him to the top of recent polls in Iowa, where there is a heavy fixation on selecting a candidate who can beat Mr. Trump.
At this point, he is also managing to do what Ms. Klobuchar is still working toward: turning a surge in interest into firm commitment.