Сенаторы должны быть в Вашингтоне во время суда по делу об импичменте. Это проблема для тех, кто баллотируется на пост президента

The loomingSenate trial of President Donald Trumphas claimed its first sufferer, and it’s no longer the besieged Commander in Chief, any of his closest aides and even a Republican. On Jan. 13,Senator Cory Bookerended his flee for theDemocrats’ White Dwelling nomination, blaming the choice partly on the indisputable fact that “the pressing industrial of impeachment will rightly be preserving me in Washington.”

Booker’s attendance at Trump’s trial is rarely any longer elective. Senators are required to be in the Capitol for it, every afternoon from Monday to Saturday, below penalty of arrest by the sergeant at fingers. And Booker’s no longer the most efficient one affected. As soon as the lawsuits birth up in earnest–perchance as rapidly as Jan. 21, apt 13 days earlier than the Iowa caucuses–four candidates for the Democratic nomination, including top contendersElizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, shall be handicapped in the first-in-the-nation contest. “It’s a truly tense time for these campaigns,” says aged Democratic strategist Matt Paul. “Here is precisely if you happen to need your candidate in the yelp a unparalleled deal.”

The Senate trial fingers a short-interval of time nonetheless severe edge on in-person campaigning toextinct Vice President Joe Bidenand extinct South Bend, Ind.,Mayor Pete Buttigieg,as effectively as to billionairesMichael BloombergandTom Steyer, who’re already blanketing the nation with advertisements. That can well perchance be excellent files for these Democrats who fright a miles-left lurch below Warren or Sanders. It’s also a reminder that even an embattled Trump can influence the competition for the White Dwelling, enjoying captor to candidates vying to full his presidency the used-fashioned approach.

These Presidential hopefuls who happen to work in Senate put of dwelling of job constructions are doing their most efficient no longer to vanish from the scene.Senator Amy Klobuchar,who has seen a gradual upward thrust in her polling in Iowa, is bracing for lengthy hours at her desk on the Senate floor throughout impeachment lawsuits, and even longer ones earlier than and after as she attempts to preserve in competition. Her campaign is pondering things appreciate beaming her into videoconferences in libraries, colleges and living rooms so she will be able to preserve voters’ questions from afar. Klobuchar will lean on a community of backers: she says she has extra endorsements from fresh and extinct Iowa elected officers than anybody else in the flee. “We are going to full all the pieces we can to proceed to earn her message out,” a senior Klobuchar campaign aide says.

The bigger-name Senators in the flee, Sanders and Warren, who own been drawing big crowds as they compete for the innovative hover of the celebration, are including out-of-yelp proxies of their arsenals.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezhas been selling Sanders, andextinct Housing and City Pattern Secretary Julián Castrohas been extolling the most likely for his excellent friend Warren. Allies of both candidates argue that the damage day the path gained’t be as harmful to them as this may occasionally well additionally be to, narrate, Colorado’s Michael Bennet, who’s gone all in with a describe centered on Unique Hampshire’s Feb. 11 major. The Warren and Sanders crews narrate their backers can weather a exiguous neglect, whereas of us appreciate Bennet and Klobuchar are easy at a extra fragile stage. Bennet’s campaign says Unique Hampshire is a easier soar for evening events.

Sanders also has money to mitigate his absence. He paid extra than $77,000 for Facebook advertisements concentrating on Iowa in 2020’s first week, when in contrast with the decrease than $8,000 Biden’s campaign spent chasing the same viewers throughout that interval, in accordance with a tracking database published by the Democratic consultancy Bully Pulpit Interactive. Warren, whose fundraising sagged at the stay of 2019, spent decrease than $15,000 on Facebook advertisements throughout that window.

Even with proxies and campaign funds arduous at work, Sanders and Warren are at risk if their message of a revolution will get caught in Washington. There is exiguous better than in-person, retail-vogue campaigning in Iowa and Unique Hampshire, where voters bewitch to creep and prod the campaigns. A Des Moines Register/CNN polllaunched on Jan. 10 chanced on practically one-third of seemingly Iowa caucusgoers easy undecided or backing somebody who is rarely any longer viable below celebration principles that require 15% wait on to rating any delegates.

Sanders, whose momentum wasn’t disrupted by an October heart assault that stored him off the path, guarantees an aggressive campaign regardless of what. “He’ll be available on weekends, and he can earn available on evenings,” says Representative Ro Khanna, a nationwide co-chair of Sanders’ campaign. “His precedence shall be the Senate trial. He’s made that decided.” Warren is equally hanging on a mettlesome face. “There are some things that are extra crucial than politics, and if we own an impeachment continuing going on, I shall be there,” she instructed journalists in Rochester, N.H., on Dec. 7. “Here is rarely any longer about politics.”

Some voters appreciate that stance. “I appreciate them extra for going and upholding their oath to the Structure and their tasks there,” says 49-one year-used Mary Kay Smith of Des Moines. That’s no longer preserving Smith from preserving her choices open. On Jan. 13, Smith, who is leaning toward Buttigieg, attended a town hall to peep fringe contender Andrew Yang talk about.

With reporting by Charlotte Alter/Unique York, Lissandra Villa/Des Moines, Iowa and Abby Vesoulis/Washington

This looks in the January 27, 2020 grief of TIME.

Write toPhilip Elliott atphilip.elliott@time.com.