Former Governor of Maryland Martin J. O'Malley visited the Iowa Democratic Party Awards Dinner at Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday, April 10, 2015. (The Daily Iowan/Peter Kim)

By Quentin Misiag

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Martin O’Malley — now the lone Democratic dark horse candidate in the 2016 presidential horse race — was not the last person to touch down in Iowa before rolling out his national campaign.

In fact, in many ways, with appearances for Iowa Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections, he was one of the first.

With Vice President Joe Biden’s announcement that he would not mount a third presidential run, questions arising with the stances of his party’s rivals, and two fewer Democrats running for their party’s nomination, a growing number of Iowa Democrats and former high-level Democratic allies are beginning to direct their attention to the 52-year-old Marylander.

In a series of interviews with The Daily Iowan over the past several weeks, some Democrats, such as former Bill Clinton White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry say O’Malley has the best chance of closing in on Clinton’s commanding lead in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus grounds.

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“He’s very capable of surging,” McCurry said in an interview last week, of O’Malley, the two-term Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor who has struggled to come away with double-digit polling support in Iowa or many national polls.

Of the 615 usual Democratic voters surveyed in the latest Public Policy Polling survey released Monday, 57 percent of state Democrats said they would like to see Clinton as the Democratic candidate for president in 2016, compared with 25 percent for Sanders, 7 percent for O’Malley and 1 percent for Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig.

Monday’s poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. Eighty percent of participants responded by phone, with the remaining 20 percent responding on the Internet.

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“They really respect the fact that he is the only candidate who has led with his principles,” said Kristin Sosanie, O’Malley’s Iowa Deputy State Director, adding that voters can expect to see O’Malley ratchet up his attacks on his Democratic rivals in the coming weeks.

“He’s running a textbook caucus campaign in Iowa,” said George Appleby, O’Malley’s Iowa state co-head. “The campaign is really just beginning.”

A backer of Obama in 2008 and 2012, Appleby said in regular conversations with longtime state Democrats, one resounding theme forms:

O’Malley would be their first choice if Biden would opt to not pursue a third presidential campaign.

“Not to disrespect him, but Bernie in particular is a kind of stand-in candidate. He’s not electable,” Appleby said, noting that Sanders’s rise in popularity has brought out strong policy issues that will play in O’Malley’s favor.

Prominent Iowa Democrats in O’Malley’s 71-person Iowa leadership team include state Sen. Kevin Kinney, D-Oxford, and state Rep. Bruce Hunter, D-Des Moines.

John Deeth, a longtime Iowa City Democratic blogger, said O’Malley has been smart to nurture a personal friendship with Kinney. Kinney’s seat is divided among Johnson, Keokuk, and Washington Counties, which the state official could use to leverage support for O’Malley.

Because O’Malley worked closely on Gary Hart’s 1984 presidential campaign in Iowa, he has a more personal connection to the Iowa caucuses than Clinton and Sanders, Deeth argued.

“Every time he says ‘15 years of executive experience,’ that’s a drinking line,” Deeth said, joking. “But in all honestly, that’s a strength he has to play.”