To say there’s a lack of enthusiasm for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates would be a grand understatement.
And in South Carolina, apparently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not so popular.
The Massachusetts Democrat hawking the $52 trillion Medicare-for-all program spoke Friday evening at an “Environmental Justice” forum in the state. From photos of the event, it looks like dozens came, maybe 100 tops. Shots from the back of the auditorium show a sea of empty seats.
ORANGEBURG — Elizabeth Warren takes the stage at an Environmental Justice forum in South Carolina before a sparse audience. Tom Steyer spoke before her; numerous rivals skipped it. pic.twitter.com/CJnoCuNheF
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 9, 2019
Voters didn’t pack in for Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), either. From pictures, it looks like only three rows at the front were filled, with smatterings of attendees in higher rows.
“Cory Booker is up, opening with a joke about how 2020 isn’t the year of the election, it’s the number of people running in the Democratic primary,” wrote Kapur, national political reporter for Bloomberg News.
Cory Booker is up, opening with a joke about how 2020 isn’t the year of the election, it’s the number of people running in the Democratic primary. pic.twitter.com/bfwZBeJZI7
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 9, 2019
Four other also-rans attended the forum: former members of Congress John Delaney and Joe Sestak; the billionaire Tom Steyer; and author/debate star Marianne Williamson.
Warren has been rising in the polls, catching and then passing former Vice President Joe Biden, who had been expected to walk away with the nomination. But there is concern within the Democratic Party that she is too liberal to beat Donald Trump in November 2020.
Recently, she’s scrapped with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who said he could well vote for Trump if Warren is the nominee. Warren is pushing an “ultra millionaire tax” that would apply a 2% annual tax on households with a net worth between $50 million and $1 billion.
“I’ve paid over $10 billion in taxes,” the multi-billionaire said Wednesday. “I’ve paid more than anyone in taxes. If I had to pay $20 billion, it’s fine,” Gates said.
But Gates, who Forbes magazine places second on the world’s wealthiest list at $97 billion, said “when you say I should pay $100 billion, then I’m starting to do a little math over what I have left over.”
And the billionaire also said he’s “not sure how open-minded she is, or that she’d even be willing to sit down with somebody, you know, who has large amounts of money.”
Warren not only wants to spend hundreds of billions to offer free college to all Americans, she also wants to spend trillions on climate change and that $52 trillion on nationalized health care.
Under the plan, no one would have “to pay for premiums or copays or any of the other ways health insurance companies stick you with the bill,” Warren says on her website. “Medicare for All doesn’t raise middle-class taxes by one penny.”
Questions emerged immediately on how to pay for the program. Said Warren: “The $11 trillion in household insurance and out-of-pocket expenses projected under our current system goes right back into the pockets of America’s working people,” Warren writes. “And we make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases.”
“How is it all paid for? Well, if you’re not in the top 1%, Wall Street, or a big corporation—congratulations, you don’t pay a penny more and you’re fully covered by #MedicareForAll,” Warren wrote on Twitter.