Hood Critic
The Power Circle
Average of polls, not just one poll. Y'all cherrypicking talking points like y'all accuse everyone else of cherrypicking poll results.
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2020 Democratic Primary Thread: Focus on House & Senate races
- Thread starter mc_brew
- Start date
Average of polls, not just one poll. Y'all cherrypicking talking points like y'all accuse everyone else of cherrypicking poll results.
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Bernie Sanders has a problem. Her name is Elizabeth Warren.
September 22, 2019
DES MOINES — Jodi Stanfield enthusiastically supported Bernie Sanders in 2016. Now, she has found a new candidate who excites her: Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
“I trust her when she says she can fight, and also win,” Stanfield said Saturday at a Democratic steak fry where many of the candidates spoke. While Sanders and Warren have similar platforms, the Massachusetts Democrat would be more effective in accomplishing her goals, said the 51-year-old, who works at the YMCA.
Stanfield represents a growing problem for the Vermont independent in his second run for president: Warren has begun to eclipse Sanders’s once-dominant standing among the Democratic Party’s most liberal voters and surpass him in some polls in the first two states in the nominating process: Iowa and New Hampshire.
They both support what would be a massive economic restructuring with ideas such as Medicare-for-all, but Sanders, 78, has carved out his brand as a democratic socialist while Warren, 70, has described herself as a capitalist who has operated more as part of the Democratic mainstream. While Sanders drew notice in 2016 for his avid fans and big crowds, it is Warren this time who is gaining traction that way.
These challenges have been compounded by volatility inside Sanders’s operations in Iowa and New Hampshire. The campaign quietly fired its Iowa political director in the late summer and has yet to name a replacement — a key vacancy as the race enters a crucial phase, with less than five months to go before the February caucuses.
Sanders’s difficulties in Iowa have come into sharper focus over the weekend. The most respected pollster in the state released a survey late Saturday showing Warren surging to 22 percent, two points ahead of former vice president Joe Biden, with Sanders at 11 percent. That places him third in the state where he fought Hillary Clinton to a near draw in 2016, launching an electrifying national movement.
Perhaps more worrisome for Sanders, the poll provided the clearest indication yet that Warren is eating into his base. She is winning a bigger share of people who caucused for Sanders in 2016 than he is, and she is outpacing him among those under 35, his former strong suit, according to the survey conducted by Selzer and Co. for the Des Moines Register, CNN and Mediacom.
“I give him tremendous credit for changing the conversation,” said Rod Sullivan, a Johnson County supervisor who introduced Sanders at a campaign stop in 2015 and now backs Warren. “We need to get that kind of stuff done and I think there’s a better way to get it done now. Last time was a binary choice and this time I think there are better messengers.”
Sanders campaign officials, dismissing the notion that their candidate is struggling, vowed Sunday to plow ahead with aggressive moves to win the Iowa caucuses. The Sanders campaign announced last week it has attracted 1 million individual donors, a historic mark which officials said is a strong sign of enthusiasm for his candidacy.
“Unlike Bernie Sanders, polls are inconsistent and all over the place, including an Iowa poll that came a few days ago,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement. “We feel good about our field operation in the state and our team is working harder and harder each day to urge people to caucus for a once-in-a-lifetime candidate.”
Sanders will embark Monday on a “Bernie Beats Trump” tour across the state, an effort to argue that he is the most electable choice against President Trump in 2020. But his more immediate obstacle is Warren, whom he has refrained from criticizing, though some of his surrogates have been more aggressive.
Sanders has sought to stand out from the pack by emphasizing his decades-long advocacy of sweeping ideas like Medicare-for-all, something he did at a Sunday rally in Warren’s childhood hometown of Norman, Oklahoma.
“It is unique and maybe unique in American history,” Sanders said of his campaign, as he encouraged supporters to join a nationwide grass-roots movement. After they started chanting his name, he replied, “It ain’t Bernie, it’s you.”
For loyal followers like C.J. Petersen of Breda, Iowa, Sanders’s consistency merits support at the caucuses. “Senator Warren is fantastic,” the 29-year-old said. “But Bernie has been on these issues in the very beginning.”
But for many others, that’s no longer enough. Matt Shockley, a 24-year-old teacher from Oklahoma City who attended the Sanders rally in Norman, said he voted for Sanders in 2016, but now is leaning toward Warren.
“She’s very warm as a person and she has her own kind of charisma,” he said. “I think that will really help in the general. And on policy, she and Bernie are so similar, it doesn’t feel like there’s much of a trade-off in voting for her over him.”
As the Sanders campaign tries to hang on to voters like Shockley, employee disputes and staff shake-ups have jolted the Vermont senator’s organization, stretching from important early states to the Washington headquarters, leading to firings, resignations, tense meetings and fierce rivalries, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
In New Hampshire, where Sanders defeated Clinton by 22 points but is now in close competition with Warren and Biden, Sanders recently changed state directors. The operation had been tumultuous for months, people with knowledge with the situation said.
Some of the internal friction has touched the highest levels of the campaign. A dispute over salaries earlier this year pitted rank-and-file field staff against campaign management. On a conference call the day after a Washington Post report about the standoff, Shakir bluntly warned any leakers to quickly leave the campaign, speaking in a tone that angered some participants, people with knowledge of the call said.
The Post interviewed 30 present and past Sanders aides, allies and voters for this story. Many who described the tension in the campaign spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Warren has been building a robust operation in Iowa that many local Democratic strategists said is the most impressive in the field. She has been picking off former Sanders backers, including some of his earliest champions.
The Sanders campaign brushed aside questions about firing its Iowa political director Jess Mazour in the late summer. “We’ll continue to make moves that we feel best position this campaign to win,” Shakir said in a written statement after The Post reached out to the campaign last week. Mazour did not respond to requests for comment.
Although friction and turnover is not uncommon in the high-pressure environment of presidential campaigns, the extent of the discord in the Sanders operation has surprised some Democrats inside and outside the campaign. They say it reflects a departure from Sanders’s 2016 effort.
“As presidential campaigns go, the 2016 Sanders campaign had less conflict than most,” said Mark Longabaugh, a lead strategist on that run who abruptly parted ways with the campaign on the eve of Sanders’s entrance into the 2020 race.
Sanders campaign officials played down the personnel changes and said his unique platform of demanding revolutionary change will ultimately propel him to victory.
“Senator Sanders is very confident. He is feeling good about the campaign. We believe this race is down to the three people and we have the best ground game,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of Sanders’s national co-chairs.
Khanna was speaking about Warren and Biden, who along with Sanders, have appeared at the top of most recent state and national surveys.
Inside the Sanders campaign in New Hampshire, there were issues at the top levels of the campaign from its earliest days. State director Joe Caiazzo and senior strategist Kurt Ehrenberg, two veterans of the 2016 campaign, were in constant conflict, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The workplace situation became so strained earlier this year that a human resources official had to intervene, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Caiazzo and Ehrenberg declined to comment for this story. Caiazzo was recently reassigned to run the Sanders campaign in Massachusetts and Ehrenberg is no longer with the campaign.
Shakir said the personnel decisions were of no concern. “We’ve built a great team in New Hampshire and are in a really strong position there,” Shakir said in a statement explaining the moves.
Yet for some Sanders supporters, the New Hampshire Democratic convention earlier this month served as a sobering moment. In a state where Sanders won just over 60 percent of the vote in the 2016 primary, he was no longer the top draw.
Sanders took the stage in Manchester to a rousing ovation, to as many full chairs as anyone then had earned, and to a room of waving signs bearing his name. It was louder than the reception greeting for anyone else — until Warren took the stage to a two-minute ovation not long after.
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storyteller
Veteran
No, it’s not an attack if you point out who has better policy. That’s fine show the masses the pros and cons to each side and let people make the decision on what candidate. Don’t come to a discussion with a condescending attitude like whatever you believe is superior because it’s only make you look like an a$$hole.
Everyone has blind supporters don’t kid yourself breh. Bernie has a movement which is great! But You’re able to get more casuals on the bandwagon that way and it’s a credit to Bernie because him and his campaign have worked hard to build it. Casuals are usually blind supporters. I didn’t call you a blind supporter don’t take what I’m saying personally. I guarantee you all Warren supporters in here argue with logic and not emotion, give examples of us “getting in our feelings and shyt”
I listen to Michael brooks almost everyday on Sam seders show and he’s great I just don’t like when he goes on his emotional tangents.
As a lefty but also pretty avid about Warren being a great option, I feel like Brooks' critiques all fall within being the strategic goals of people that want transformative systemic changes. I tend to lean more into the Emma Vigeland mindset which isn't as openly critical of Warren but recognizes that when people like Michael Brooks and Kyle Kulinsky go in on their critiques, there's always a substantive claim underlying in there. We just gotta get Biden out of the conversation and I'm gonna be ecstatic. But the frustrating issue for me is that people blend critiques with substance into "emotional" or "bernie bro" ish...nah, these are strategic differences and dismissing the critiques is bad form. This ain't Pocahontas crap, it's "the whole country is listening and we're on the verge of a number of economic, racial and climate related systemic problems hitting boiling point; how bold can we and should we go?"
These polls and endorsements got people worked up (I'm guilty too). I said weeks ago that we shouldn't worry about this and just speak on the issues of our preferred candidates. Twitter isn't reality and neither is this place to be honest but it's good to bounce points and bring them to the real world. Right now most people still aren't paying attention to the race and if you look at the polling anyway there's a large percentage of undecideds. Everyone needs to calm the fukk down and let this play out till atleast December. By then alot of these terrible candidates will have dropped out and then we can focus on getting Biden out the paint. And to be 100 the best course of action for that is for both Bernie and Warren to stay in the race and chip off states from him until the end.
Getting testy in here
Berniewood Hogan
IT'S BERNIE SANDERS WITH A STEEL CHAIR!
New Jeruzalem Journalist
Superstar
Agree with this here.
I was a supporter of Warren for YEARS (and still do support her) before she even became a politician. I read The Two-Income Trap back in 2006 and would always tune in whenever she popped up on C-Span, PBS, or CNN to hear her takes on Wall Street, the debt crisis, and the financial institutions. I was heavy in debt at the time, still dealing with student loans, and her analysis of how these problems were crippling people of my generation were key in further shaping my outlook on the economic and power implications of consumer debt at the time along with people like Anya Kamenetz, James Scurlock, and David Cay Johnston. And I was thrilled when she won her Senate seat and had even hoped she would run for Pres in 2016.
All that being said, she ain't Bernie Sanders. They are not two sides of the same coin. Bernie's platform, unequivocal zeal for M4A, aims of drastically shifting the power dynamics on a societal level, his criminal justice reform proposals, far outweigh any other candidate in this race IMO.
He got my vote in 2016 and he'll get it again in 2020. And saying this is NOT a personal attack on Warren. I obviously can't speak for everybody, but I personally find it absurd as a Bernie supporter to be smeared in such a way when I probably have been following Elizabeth Warren's writings and analysis longer than some of her online supporters were even old enough to vote.
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King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
Has Michael Brooks ever criticized Bernie or M4A for failing to include government takeover of the hospital system? Or has he ever criticized Bernie for kowtowing to the military industrial complex when he lobbied Lockheed Martin to build the F-35 warplanes in Vermont? Genuinely curious, I've only watched a few of his episodes.
King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
I'm actually very curious to see how the anti-Liz Bernie or Bust supporters would react to Bernie signing into law an ACA expansion with a public option. I wonder if they'd demand he be primaried in 2024 because he turned his back on the movement and became an establishment stooge like they're claiming Warren is.
they skuuuurrreedddd 
Democratic Opponents Search for Plan Against Elizabeth Warren
While candidates have tangled publicly with Joe Biden, they are being more cautious with the Massachusetts senator
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren at a town hall meeting on Sept. 19 in Iowa City, Iowa. PHOTO: JOSHUA LOTT/GETTY IMAGES
By
Ken Thomas and
Eliza Collins
Updated Sept. 21, 2019 11:59 am ET
WASHINGTON— Elizabeth Warren is building a broad coalition of Democratic voters, and her rivals are taking notice. But so far, they are still testing out ways to undercut her appeal.
Ms. Warren’s steady rise has prompted primary opponents such as Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg to search for ways to blunt her momentum at a time when the leading contender, Joe Biden, has weathered a series of stumbles and direct attacks.
While candidates have tangled publicly with the former vice president over everything from his age to his agenda, they are being more cautious with Ms. Warren, often criticizing her indirectly or homing in on her policy proposals rather than her record.
“We got a lot of great people running, but some of these ideas are better left in the college faculty lounge than right here at this port,” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said during a stop Thursday at a Detroit port.
She said later that she wasn’t singling out the former Harvard Law professor.
Ms. Harris, meanwhile, expressed her frustration about Ms. Warren’s fundraising practices during a private New York fundraiser on Tuesday, people familiar with the event said. Ms. Harris, who hasn’t been so critical of the Massachusetts senator in public, said it was hypocritical for Ms. Warren to claim she wasn’t taking money from large donors when her campaign was using millions transferred from her Senate account and raised before she swore off traditional fundraising.
Powered by large-scale rallies, Ms. Warren has attracted liberals and college-educated women as she seeks to challenge Mr. Biden in the primaries. But a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed a boost in enthusiasm for Ms. Warren and detailed support for her among a range of age groups and backgrounds.
That is giving her opponents an incentive to confront her on health care and fundraising with an eye on cracking into her support in Iowa, where she has organized heavily ahead of next February’s leadoff caucuses.
Kristen Orthman, Ms. Warren’s communications director, said, “we will continue to run the campaign we have from the beginning: identifying what is broken, talking about our plans to fix it, and building a grass-roots movement to make it happen.”
The Warren campaign has noted that the senator raised and donated $11 million to help Democrats up and down the ballot around the country while she was running for re-election in 2018.
The large field of Democratic contenders is gathering in Des Moines this weekend for the Polk County Democrats’ steak fry fundraiser, an annual event expected to draw more than 10,000 activists.
Many Democratic campaigns have taken to heart the lessons of 2016, in which several Republican campaigns declined to challenge Donald Trump forcefully until he had built a significant advantage in the primary and then went on to win the party’s nomination and the presidency. Democrats have already tried to pick off Mr. Biden’s support.
A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed a boost in enthusiasm for Sen. Elizabeth Warren. PHOTO: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Now, with Mr. Biden still leading as the fall campaigning picks up, candidates who hope to finish in the top tier in Iowa are looking for new sources of votes.
“In this setup, it is more dangerous to be the No. 2 or No. 3 candidate in the vote total than it is to be 4, 5 or even No. 1,” said Democratic strategist Dan Sena, a former top aide for the House Democrats’ campaign arm.
When Ms. Warren has faced scrutiny, it has largely centered on her support for Mr. Sanders’s Medicare for All plan.
Mr. Biden, during an event Friday in Cedar Rapids, repeated his argument that a single-payer system would be too costly and require higher taxes on middle-class families.
“Tell Elizabeth,” the former vice president told a woman who accused him of protecting the insurance industry and later said she is backing Ms. Warren, “it’s going to cost a lot of money and she’s going to raise people’s taxes doing it, and what are we going to do in the middle of a recession if we end up there?”
Mr. Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., said Ms. Warren is too vague about how she would pay for such a plan.
He said in a Thursday interview with CNN that Ms. Warren “was extremely evasive” when she was asked during the September Democratic debate if the proposal would require taxes to be increased on middle-class families.
“I think that if you are proud of your plan and it’s the right plan, you should defend it,” Mr. Buttigieg said.
Mr. Biden has largely steered clear of Ms. Warren as he sits atop the polls. But both Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are looming large over his race.
Neil Bluhm, a billionaire real estate and casino magnate, introduced the former vice president at a Chicago fundraiser on Thursday, telling the audience that Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders “don’t represent the Democratic Party” that he supports and that Mr. Biden “has the best chance of defeating Trump.”
While Ms. Warren may be gaining momentum, Mr. Sanders is still largely focused on Mr. Biden, with whom he has more clearly defined policy and strategy differences.
Aides to Mr. Sanders have long said they believe that Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders share a similar section of working-class voters and that one could benefit if the other stumbles.
When asked about Mr. Sanders’s approach to Ms. Warren, senior adviser Jeff Weaver said Mr. Sanders would highlight that he “is the only leading candidate who is running a 100% grass-roots campaign and committed to funding a grass-roots funded general election campaign.”
He also pointed out that Mr. Sanders said during the most recent Democratic debate that he was the only candidate to vote against all of the military budgets in the Trump administration.
Ms. Warren has voted for one of the three, but Mr. Sanders didn’t mention her.
—Emily Glazer, John McCormick and Gabriel T. Rubin contributed to this article.
Write to Ken Thomas at ken.thomas@wsj.com and Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com.
King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
What's stupid is arguing that whatever demographics make up Warren's base a year before the DNC is somehow indicative of her general election chances or how she would govern. According to that line of thinking, Bernie is dead in the water in a general because he has absolutely no purchase amongst older voters, particularly older PoC. Current polling shows Black women in the south, who make up the backbone of the Democratic coalition, ain't fukking with Bernie. Numbers change. Obama has underwater with southern black voters at this point in the '08 primary as well. I don't know why anyone would pin themselves into such a corner of stupidity when we all know what will happen if Liz wins Iowa and/or New Hampshire. History tells us the black vote would switch en masse and that dumbass "Liz only attracts white wealthy wine moms!" take will have aged like...well, white wealthy wine moms
John Reena
Superstar
Shyt had me dying when Bernie got swept in the south. Liberals really do live in a bubble, thinking the rest of the country wants their way of life, they going to find out the hard way
They smoking that GOOD weed. Only far left liberals would run a liberal white woman against Trump and LOSE.....then come back 4 years later and run ANOTHER liberal white woman n expect different results.
I dont think the demographics of a base are all that important this far ahead of the votes but i must say it seems a bit hypocritical for people to have gotten on bernies case for that but not warren..assuming there are those out there doing this. I have no way of keeping track who is saying what year to year or at least rather not spend the energy doing so
They smoking that GOOD weed. Only far left liberals would run a liberal white woman against Trump and LOSE.....then come back 4 years later and run ANOTHER liberal white woman n expect different results.
Hillary was not liberal or at least probably would not have governed as a liberal
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
lol @ comparing hilary to warren....this is why some of yall need to stick to discussing politics in TLR