On January 11, Politico reported that the campaign for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was allegedly instructing its people to attack rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) by implying she is a candidate who cannot expand beyond the “highly educated” and “more affluent.”
Following the report, Warren said she was “disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me.”
CNN then dropped a bombshell report, claiming that in 2018, Sanders told Warren that he didn’t believe a woman could win in 2020.
In response to CNN’s report, Warren said:
Among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate. I thought a woman could win; he disagreed. I have no interest in discussing this private meeting any further because Bernie and I have far more in common than our differences on punditry.
During Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate, the fissure was brought to the fore. Moderator Abby Phillip of CNN asked Sanders about the alleged exchange, and Sanders denied he ever said that a woman couldn’t win.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t say that. And I don’t want to waste a lot of time on this because this is what Donald Trump, maybe some of the media would want,” Sanders replied. “Anybody who knows me knows it is incomprehensible that I would think that a woman could not be president of the United States.”
Sanders went on to talk about Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote, and that he would back any woman on the stage with him if they were to become the nominee.
Phillip then asked Warren: “What did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” Sanders looked incredulous that such a presumptuous question would be asked, and the audience laughed.
Warren responded: “I disagreed. Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But, look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it’s time for us to attack it head-on.”
Following the debate, Warren approached Sanders while still on camera and with mics still recording, and accused him of calling her “a liar on national TV.” Sanders rebuffed Warren, first claiming that she was the one calling him “a liar,” then stating that if they wanted to talk about it, they should do so later.
CNN was widely trashed on social media, and by political commentators, for the way in which the exchange was handled.
Speaking with The Hill on Thursday, former Obama official and former Virginia Deputy Attorney General Stephen Cobb said that the internecine fight between Warren and Sanders didn’t play “out well for either of them,” and if any candidate were to benefit from the kerfuffle, it would be former Vice President Joe Biden.
“If you are arguably the front-runner or a front-runner and you go into a debate where everyone is taking potshots at each other and you can kind of rise above the fray, you get to come out the winner,” Cobb said.
However, one new poll conducted entirely after the debate has Sanders in the lead.
According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos national poll, which was conducted between January 15 – 16 (the two days following the debate) on “681 Democrats and independents, including 552 who were registered to vote,” Sen. Sanders takes the lead with 20% support. In second place is Biden with 19%. In third is Warren with 12%.
Reuters notes that this poll showed “an increase of 2 percentage points [for Sanders] from a similar poll that ran last week.”
That said, according to the RealClearPolitics national average of polls, Biden still leads Sanders by a healthy 8% (28.4% to 20.4%). Biden also leads Sanders in Iowa by 0.4%, but in New Hampshire, Sanders leads Biden by 1.5%. Warren sits in third place nationally, fourth place in Iowa, and third place in New Hampshire, per RealClearPolitics polling avareges.