NEWTON, Iowa — Less than four years ago, Hillary Clinton consigned many of them to the "basket of deplorables," famously branding Trump voters as "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it" two months she slumped to a shock defeat.

Now, Joe Biden - who skipped 2016 in part because Clinton seemed invulnerable in the Democratic primaries - is trying to win them back.

Campaigning for next year's Democratic primaries in the first-voting state of Iowa, Biden ripped his own party for ignoring Trump voters. He even emphasized his underlying faith in Washington, insisting the only thing wrong with the system was the president.

Democratic insiders are questioning Biden’s approach as progressives clamor for an ambitious left turn in government. Given many Trump voters were disgusted by Washington and politics as usual, the pitch of a return to a pre-2016 normalcy is a curious way of wooing them. But the former vice president's strategy seems to be aimed as adding independents and disaffected Republicans to regular Democrats.

The rosy rhetoric is playing well with some rank-and-file Democrats, but it runs counter to the message from his Democratic rivals, who promise to turn Washington upside down, diagnosing Trump as both a symptom and a cause of the country’s problems.

At events in central Iowa, Biden’s biggest applause lines were his calls for restoration of national cohesion. Indeed, nobody booed when Biden told likely caucus-goers: “Some of you voted for Donald Trump … My party stopped talking to you.”

Even the smattering of younger voters kicking the tires on the 76 year-old Biden approved. “If I can put a smile on your face and make you happy by the end of the day, I’ve done my job, and I feel like he can do that for America,” said Davant Marshall, a 27 year-old salesman who plans to caucus for Biden.

Anne Hamilton, 23, and Raiza Oquendo, 31, are undecided. But both lauded Biden’s commitment to political reconciliation in interviews with the Washington Examiner after chatting one-on-one with the former vice president following his hour-plus extemporaneous speech to a mostly middle-aged audience here in Newton, a modest community some 35 miles east of Des Moines.

“You don’t have to be completely radical about some of the situations that this country is going through,” said Oquendo. Hamilton added that Biden was right to reach out to Trump voters, a somewhat controversial position among liberals who see them as enablers of the president’s confrontational behavior. “There are so many factors [behind] people voting for Trump, so to say they’re lost? No, not at all,” she said.

Biden is leading in polls among Democarats nationally, he’s up in the key early primary states and he performs better against Trump in hypothetical matchups than do other Democrats. That could signal more hunger among rank-and-file Democrats for the traditional, feel-good message Biden is offering than is suggested by the combative progressive activists who tend to dominate the public debate.

“I think it’s an advantage,” said Sean Bagniewski, Polk County Democratic chairman. “A lot of caucus-goers may not be the same activists like me who show up to every rally. A lot of voters crave unity and for things to just go back to normal.”

Some party activists doubt that Biden’s optimism can win him the Feb. 3 Iowa caucus, the crucial first nominating contest. The former vice president under Barack Obama is pledging to quell polarization that has roiled the country for most of this century and unite Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill around shared goals. Many liberals believe Biden is naïve and out of touch.

“I think there is maybe a portion" of caucus-goers with whom "it will play well,” said Julie Geopfert, chairman of the Democratic Party in Webster County. “I think that there’s another portion of them that it will not play well — at all.”

JoAnn Hardy, Democratic chairman in Cerro Gordo — like Webster, a county that flipped from Obama to Trump — also challenged the effectiveness of Biden’s message at time when white, college educated liberals and younger voters, two key constituencies, are gravitating toward ambitious progressives like Elizabeth Warren. “There are some folks who think it’s our turn to pull the country back to some kind of balance because we’ve gotten so far tilted to the right,” Hardy said.

Warren, steadily gaining support and nipping at Biden’s heels, has been attracting enthusiastic, overflow crowds with a populist message that revolves around blaming Washington for rigging the system in favor of the wealthy and well-connected. Warren, vowing to “dream big” and “fight hard” to effect “big, structural change,” relegates Trump to a symptom of the national disease of corruption.

The Massachusetts senator drew a Trump-worthy 12,000 to her first stop in Minnesota, originally planned as a town hall but transformed into a rally after the crowd size became apparent. “I think she’s bringing the most progressive message, the most inclusive message, the most pushing forward rather than trying to timidly stay center,” said Warren supporter Justin Ropella, 36, who showed up to see her St. Paul.