Faced with losing to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) by double digits in the Nevada caucus, Sen. Elizabeth Warren took aim not at the Vermont socialist currently slated to earn the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination but at former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has yet to appear on a single primary ballot.
Speaking at a rally in Seattle, Washington, Saturday night, Warren joked about Bloomberg’s height and suggested that her campaign is on an upward trajectory, even though she isn’t slated to win a single contest through Super Tuesday.
“I’m not in this fight to talk about change. I’m in this fight to make change,” Warren told the crowd, according to the local Fox affiliate. “We have a lot of states to go, and right now I can feel the momentum.”
As for Bloomberg, himself, well, Warren said he is “a big threat, not a tall threat, but a big one.”
“I want to talk specifically for just a minute at the top about a threat that is coming our way. And it’s a big threat,” Warren said. “Not a tall one, but a big one: Michael Bloomberg.”
Warren is, according to Wikipedia, one inch taller than Bloomberg at 5’8″. Bloomberg’s height, though, varies from outlet to outlet and it’s likely the subject of a public relations campaign on the part of the mayor who is notoriously touchy about his height.
President Donald Trump, knowing Bloomberg’s weakness, used it against him earlier this month, suggesting that, in a debate situation, Bloomberg would need a booster to look as tall as other candidates.
“Mini Mike is a 5’4” mass of dead energy who does not want to be on the debate stage with these professional politicians. No boxes please. He hates Crazy Bernie and will, with enough money, possibly stop him. Bernie’s people will go nuts!” Trump tweeted.
Warren hasn’t placed well in any of the Democratic primary contests so far. She came in third in the Iowa Caucuses, behind Sanders and former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, and although she was expected (at one time) to win the New Hamsphire primary, she placed a disappointing fourth there, after Sanders, Buttigieg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
In Saturday’s Nevada Caucus, Warren again took fourth, this time behind Sanders, Buttigieg, and, for the first time, former Vice President Joe Biden.
In recents, crack have begun to show in Warren’s campaign, too. Since Iowa, she’s canceled a number of ad buys in South Carolina, signaling that she’s running out of money to spend on contests where she won’t do well (Sanders and Biden are expected to duke it out in South Carolina), and her backers are reportedly considering jumping ship, particularly if she fails to make a dent anywhere on Super Tuesday.
Warren is hoping to pick up some of the smaller Super Tuesday states, including Washington, and to do well in solidly blue states like California and Texas, where Democrats are expected to be more “Sander-skeptical” than in other places.
After her visit to Seattle, Warren flew to Denver, Colorado, for an appearance, again in the hopes that she can pick up the state on Super Tuesday.