No Democrat even approaches Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts when it comes to the sheer volume of policy content. Likewise, no other Democrat has experienced her rapid rise into first place or, now, her dramatic fall in the polls.
It is impossible not to wonder whether these two facts aren’t connected and whether they don’t provide a clear warning for Democrats.
Just before the first Democratic debate, national polling showed Warren was comfortably in third place. According to Real Clear Politics’s average of national polling, she stood at 13% support in June. By early August, she had passed Bernie Sanders with 17%, and by early October, her polling average had risen to 27%.
Today, Warren has fallen back to 14% — a striking halving of her support. She now trails Sanders and Biden.
The two things that set Warren apart are the volatility of her support and the proliferation of her policy proposals. A point of pride, her website states: “Elizabeth has a lot of plans.” That puts it mildly. As of December, her website listed 62 broad policy areas. Her proposals include “Medicare for all,” a 100% clean energy for America plan, college loan forgiveness and free public college, Social Security expansion, and universal child care.
Yes, Warren has been known for some other things too. In many ways, she is more “Hillary” than Hillary Clinton — a walking liberal resume, more than willing to recite itself to impress. Yet that, and even those things which conservatives tease, was known before her rise. There’s no reason they would hurt her now among liberal Democratic primary voters. The culprit, much more likely, is a multiplicity of specific proposals that many Democrats disagree with, alongside her lack of a credible mechanism for paying for all of the promises she has been making.
Having tied herself to such a plethora of left-wing policy items, Warren cannot now just walk away. And herein lies a deeper danger for Democrats. Even if Warren is not their nominee, they risk picking someone who embraces a large number of liberal policies the same way she does. If specificity about those policies is not playing well with Democrats, how much worse will it fare with the general electorate? If the Left’s policies are losers even among liberal Democrats, how does the Left react?
Left-wing candidates collectively control a clear majority among the Democratic primary base. Those deemed moderate, such as Biden and Bloomberg, have less than one-third of the support. Democrats must move left if they hope to win the nomination.
Warren did not deviate from this path. Rather, she accelerated down it, providing policy specifics early on — apparently earlier than is necessary or advisable. For although Democratic voters appear to be demanding left-wing policies, they don’t seem too excited about those policies’ specifics.
This conflict between rhetoric and reality could be existential for the Democrats’ increasingly strident left. To win the 2020 nomination, candidates must run left. To validate their policies, they must give specifics. This is exactly what Warren did, and look at where it got her.
This leaves two scenarios, and neither one is promising for Democrats. One is for a Democratic candidate to survive the primaries by making promises and withholding particulars. But in the general election, that would force the candidate to give specifics to an even broader and less receptive electorate than the one Warren is failing with now.
The other alternative is that a bitterly fought nomination contest forces candidates to compete and provide Warren-level specifics now. Like Warren, they might encounter the same problem — voters like their promises, but reject their particulars and go with someone else. In this scenario, the left-wing candidates could discredit themselves, making it more likely for a moderate to win the nomination.
A disenchanted left could be just as dangerous to Democrats as a disenchanted general electorate. Warren’s sudden rise and fall demonstrate that both threats are real. Warren is showing that the Left’s call could be a siren song for Democrats.
J.T. Young served under President George W. Bush as the director of communications in the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy assistant secretary in legislative affairs for tax and budget at the Treasury Department.
