“I really like Mayor Pete,” said Lisa West, as she packed up her lawn chair after the Fairfield [Iowa] event. “He just stands for the values that we have, which is people first, not money, getting corporate interests out of government — all the basics. We need to take our country back. As a people, we need to be more active in the political structure, and he sounds like somebody who knows that.”

Buttigieg’s resistance to dwelling on Trump appealed to West and her husband, John.

“You got to restrain yourself from giving him the attention that he is seeking,” said John West, of Fairfield. “There’s no question we got to get him out of there, but if you put too much focus on the negative and not the positive and the policies and plans that you’re going to do, it’s not going to work.”