WASHINGTON — Oddly, it has been business as usual on the campaign trail this week. Senator Elizabeth Warren explained her policy plans to voters in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders walked a picket line with striking auto workers in Detroit and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. courted donors in Bel Air, Calif., and went on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night TV show.
But behind the scenes, many of the 2020 Democratic candidates have been grappling with a new reality: For the first time, a presidential primary will unfold with a sitting president seeking re-election while also facing an impeachment inquiry.
There is no political playbook for this. No pollster or strategist to speak from experience. What is clear, from interviews with advisers and allies with the various campaigns, is that the top candidates like Mr. Biden and Ms. Warren believe they are sufficiently established in the race that they can continue to command attention for their candidacies and messages. Second-tier and third-tier candidates, however, are at much greater risk of falling off the radar screen for an electorate that may soon be at a standstill, distracted by an impeachment circus in Washington.
“This is a nuclear bomb dropped in the middle of the race and it’s going to change the dynamics for everyone,” said Jared Leopold, an aide to Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, who dropped out of the race several weeks ago. “You can’t go on pretending it was like it was a week ago.”
“It scrambles the playing field,” he added.
The stark new reality for the Democratic haves and have-nots is rooted in the bifurcated political landscape of the 2020 campaign. For months, it has played out on cable television, where some candidates have been able to convert appearances into polling bumps and greater fund-raising. It has also played out on the campaign trail, where candidates have tried to catch fire with voters by talking about rising prescription drug bills, child care costs and student debt burdens.
For weeks ahead, if not months, cable shows will be so crowded with news and analysis of impeachment that only the top Democrats may have a guaranteed shot at getting on the airwaves. And in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, it may become harder for lower-polling candidates to get attention and break through there, too, amid the ongoing focus on Washington.
“These hearings are going to be taking place while the primary contests are unfolding,” Matt Barreto, a co-founder of the polling firm Latino Decisions, said. “There’s going to be wall-to-wall coverage of impeachment, how do they find space to talk about Medicare for all, immigration reform or criminal justice reform?”
On Wednesday, as new revelations about Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine unfolded on cable news, strategists, aides and allies on lower-polling campaigns cracked dark jokes about their futures, privately worrying that an expected nonstop news media focus on impeachment could be fatal for their campaigns.
More than a dozen candidates have staked their presidential bids on a breakout moment that has not yet happened, one they argue could come if Mr. Biden falters. With Mr. Biden and his son at the center of the impeachment drama, Ms. Warren ascendant and the nation’s attention focused on what happens with Mr. Trump, the path for everyone else vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination just got a lot harder.
The new normal may be campaign stunts like the almost-all-access bus tour Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., took reporters on this week in Iowa, dubbed the “Live Tweet Express” by Politico for the real-time chronicling reporters did of its exploits.
Making matters worse for candidates who have seen their fund-raising pace slow dramatically since the end of June, the House’s turn toward impeachment comes in the last week of the quarter, just days before a Sept. 30 deadline that, for several candidates, will serve as the latest marker of their financial viability.
In the last 48 hours, there have been signs that candidates other than Mr. Biden and Ms. Warren are beginning to recalibrate their strategies to keep their campaigns relevant.
Mr. Sanders, who for decades has refused to allow current events to alter his campaign strategy, held a rare news conference Tuesday in Davenport, Iowa, hours before the formal impeachment inquiry was announced. He provided a revealing glimpse into the two sides of impeachment for the candidates, castigating Mr. Trump for committing what he believed were “impeachable offenses” while also pulling back and acknowledging that impeachment proceedings posed political risks for both sides.
“This is a complicated issue from a political point of view,” he said.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who on Saturday launched a fund-raising drive that his campaign manager said was critical to his staying in the race, appeared Tuesday night on the same MSNBC program with Senator Kamala Harris of California — a demotion for two candidates who typically headline their own shows.
The next morning Mr. Booker appeared on “Fox and Friends” for the first time as a presidential candidate, talking about impeachment on the president’s favorite morning news show — an apparent attempt to draw himself into Mr. Trump’s Twitter-based news cycles.
Overwhelming numbers of Democrats nationwide support impeachment, with nearly three-quarters backing the House moving forward, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday morning. Yet, the topic has not gained primary candidates much traction on the campaign trail.
In part, that is because impeachment is not a distinguishing issue; all the leading candidates support moving forward with an impeachment investigation.
“There’s an underlying stipulation that Trump should be impeached and the Democratic candidates all agree on that point,” said Geoff Garin, a pollster working for Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC. “So questions about that don’t help voters sort out one candidate from the other.”
Democratic officials and strategists say primary voters are more eager to hear about the issues that directly impact their lives, like health care, immigration and the economy.
“When we knock on doors the thing we hear about most is health care costs,” Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said. “There’s a sense that Washington and the Trump administration are spinning out of control but what’s agonizing about that to voters is they have actual problems in their lives.”
The only exception may be Mr. Biden, who finds his family at the center of Mr. Trump’s attacks, which continued in a Wednesday news conference carried by all the major broadcast and cable networks — though MSNBC cut away early.
Some of Mr. Biden’s advisers and allies are aware that Mr. Trump’s focus on Mr. Biden’s son Hunter and his business dealings in Ukraine carries potential risk for him. Yet they also believe that Mr. Biden is at his strongest when he is challenging Mr. Trump over American values and the direction of the nation, rather than relitigating his past, and his verbal gaffes, with his Democratic rivals.
The new impeachment focus offers the former vice president an opportunity to draw direct contrasts with Mr. Trump at a time when many Democrats are inclined to be protective of Mr. Biden, aides and allies say. They also argue that Mr. Trump’s focus on Mr. Biden suggests the president is worried about Mr. Biden’s candidacy, a message the Biden campaign has reinforced through fund-raising appeals.
“It reminds him of when he was young and had a stuttering problem and dealt with bullies then,” said Representative Cedric Richmond, a Louisiana Democrat who is a national co-chairman of Mr. Biden’s campaign. “And he’s dealing with bullies now.”
But it may be Ms. Warren who most benefits from the timing of the impeachment inquiry. It comes just as she was beginning to receive increased scrutiny from her rivals and the press over her opaque answers on health care policy. Impeachment swings the news pendulum back to one of Ms. Warren’s strengths — in April she was the first top-tier candidate to call for impeaching Mr. Trump, a move that helped infuse her then-listing campaign with momentum that has yet to slow down.
Impeachment may also serve to shield Ms. Warren from fresh attacks from her Democratic rivals seeking to take aim at someone who has overtaken Mr. Biden atop some early-state polling. With the news media focused on impeachment, attacking Ms. Warren over an issue like health care may be like shouting into a void, aides to rival candidates said.
“Impeachment is good news for Elizabeth Warren,” Jeff Link, a longtime Democratic strategist, said. “If everything gets frozen, she’s either at the top or near the top.”
The impeachment drama does not appear likely to force any dramatic recalibration of Ms. Warren’s campaign. Unlike most of her rivals, she is not starving for attention.
“It is time for impeachment now,” Ms. Warren told a crowd Wednesday night in Keene, N.H. “I’m glad to see that the House has stepped up, and I hope we do this quickly.”
She then went back to her stump speech.
Nick Corasaniti, Katie Glueck, Sydney Ember, Astead W. Herndon and Thomas Kaplan contributed reporting.