Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been on the defense for much of the last several weeks but, over the weekend, the Massachusetts Senator declared war on the other progressive vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), accusing Sanders of playing dirty and marshaling his supporters to “trash” Warren on the stump.
Sanders has been getting aggressive in Iowa, but most of his — and his supporters’ — criticism has been reserved for former Vice President Joe Biden, whom Sanders (and Warren) sees as his top opponent. As far as Warren is concerned, the career Vermont Senator has been on the offense but, according to Politico, the criticism has been rather mild, and nothing Warren hasn’t heard before.
A script, distributed to Sanders phone-bankers and door-knockers in Iowa claims Warren is the “candidate of the elite,” according to Politico and instructs volunteers to say that the “people who support her are highly-educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what.”
“I like Elizabeth Warren,” the script says, noting that the volunteer has the option of actually saying they “like” Warren, “In fact, she’s my second choice. But here’s my concern about her.”
The script goes on to suggest that Warren is, indeed, the candidate of the elite, but it doesn’t attack her on the merits of her platform, or even her appeal — it simply contends that, to beat President Donald Trump, the likely Democratic nominee will need to draw from non-traditional (and non-Democratic) voters, something Warren hasn’t shown the ability to do.
In Warren’s defense, though, Sanders hasn’t shown that ability, either. Polling of voters in battleground states, where the 2020 election will be fought, show only Biden drawing from Trump’s coalition of supporters, and even then, just barely. Warren comes close in states like Arizona and Nevada, where the Democratic population is growing, but is all but non-competitive among working-class voters in the Rust Belt and in midwestern states. Sanders lacks even futher behind.
Be that as it may, though, Warren took aim at Sanders directly, accusing him of fracturing the party over a personal tiff.
“I was disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me,” Warren told reporters at an impromptu press conference in Iowa. “Bernie knows me, and has known me for a long time, he knows who I am, where I come from, what I have worked on and fought for and the coalition and grassroots movement we’re trying to build.”
She went on to bemoan “factionalism,” adding that “we can’t have a repeat of” 2016.
Bernie Sanders quickly distanced himself from his campaign’s paperwork, calling Warren a friend, but Warren isn’t likely to forgive and forget, particularly given that poll numbers in Iowa — a state she desperately needs to win to make the case that she could be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee — aren’t going her way. As Bernie Sanders gains, she loses, according to Politico, particularly among progressives — the only demographic Warren has catered to since entering the race.
“The consolidation of left-wing support is a remarkable turnaround for Sanders,” the outlet reports. “In September, the Working Families Party became the first major national progressive group to endorse a candidate when it picked Warren — despite siding with Sanders in 2016. Warren was surging at the time, and looked poised to overtake Sanders as the leader of the progressive movement and a frontrunner for the nomination … [N]ow it’s Sanders with the wind at his back.”