If Joe Biden ends up as the Democratic nominee, he likely will have Senator Elizabeth Warren to thank. With just two weeks before the critical Iowa Caucus, Warren decided to launch an assault on her “friend” Bernie Sanders. First, her staff leaked to CNN a report that in a private conversation in 2018, Sanders had told her that a woman could not defeat Donald Trump for President in 2020. Despite a vigorous denial from Sanders, CNN brought up the issue again at the debate this past week with each putting forth their recollection of the conversation. Then in the post debate meet and greet, Warren sought out Sanders and when Sanders offered to shake her hand, she declined and stated that he had called her a liar on national TV.
We believe that the incident was a planned stunt by Warren to change the dynamic of the race and galvanize her support among female progressive voters. The conversation could have been raised at any point over the past 18 months, but Warren intentionally elected to raise the issue just two weeks before Iowa at a time when Sanders had been rising in the polls, while she had been slipping. If she really cared about Sanders as a friend or progressive, she would never have raised the conversation. Warren made an overt political calculation to undermine Sanders.
The problem with political hits is that sometimes there is collateral damage. There has not been good polling pre-debate and post-debate, but our guess is that the stunt will hurt both Sanders and Warren. On Twitter, fans of both Sanders and Warren were vocal: Sanders supporters started referring to Warren as a “snake” while Warren supporters viewed Sanders as condescending to Warren and recalled how he had only grudgingly backed Hillary Clinton. 18 leading progressive groups including the Sunrise Movement (which has endorsed Sanders) and the Working Families Party (which has endorsed Warren) rushed to sign a unity pledge entitled “Progressives Unite 2020” whereby voters pledge to support both Warren and Sanders throughout the nomination process as their first and second choices.
We think the damage has been done. At this weekend’s Women’s March in Washington D.C., several prominent women activists turned their back on Sanders when he spoke. Several undecided Democratic voters also indicated that the incident has made them less likely to back Sanders. Sanders did raise a lot of money right after the debate from his loyal partisans, but to win the nomination he will need to consolidate the progressive vote, and we feel that the rift makes it much more likely that a potential Warren voter will back a non-Sanders choice as their second choice (and vice versus). Indeed, we think the big winners of this incident are Joe Biden and Senator Amy Klobuchar. Biden benefits because no one focuses on another very weak debate performance while Klobuchar rises as the only other prominent female candidate.
Time will tell if Warren’s move was politically smart, but our bet is that she has undermined both progressive candidates at a critical point in the lead up to Iowa. PredictIt’s online markets still have Bernie Sanders as the favorite in Iowa, but we don’t see how this latest incident is good news for either Sanders or Warren.
NewEnglandPolitics.com 