made early splashes in Iowa, breaking out of the pack before falling back again. Their split-screen rallies Saturday (Harris wrapped up about two hours before Buttigieg started a few suburbs away) captured their position, neither surging nor falling, with voters who could be heard discussing whether someone else would win the nomination.

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At Buttigieg's rally, where around 700 people huddled for warmth outside Roosevelt High School, Mike Alowitz and Scott McCormick compared the candidates they'd ruled out (Marianne Williamson, Tulsi Gabbard) with their shortlist of who could win. McCormack assumed that Warren was the likeliest winner but wanted to keep Buttigieg in the mix because he found him so compelling.

“He's straightforward,” said McCormick, 75, who had caucused for Sanders in 2016 and attended one of Buttigieg's first Iowa houseButtigieg. And she talks much more about her record than Buttigieg, describing “the Dark Ages” of anti-crime hysteria when she was elected San Francisco's district attorney (critics said she should be “locking people up” if she wanted to win again) and her six years as California's attorney general (“When I took on the five big banks of the United States, people said to me, calmly, your career will be over.”)

But both candidates are asked to respond to events that aren't shaped by Democratic candidates — much less the candidates looking for a foothold while polling at single digits. Like Buttigieg, Harris was prompted to talk about the president's moves in Syria. Her answer ended in a similar place, but took a longer journey there.

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“It is, yet again, another