SALEM, IOWA — Sen. Elizabeth Warren is gaining a reputation not only as the candidate who “has a plan for that,” as she frequently says on the campaign trail, but also as the candidate who can explain those plans. The former professor’s instructional style is helping her gain support in the Democratic presidential primary.
Warren, 69, who was a special education teacher earlier in life and later a law professor, turns her campaign events into classrooms and the attendees into her students. The Massachusetts senator uses her teaching skills to explain problems that she says the federal government needs to address and to make her many policy proposals digestible.
At a stop In Ottumwa, Iowa, on Sunday, Warren explained the logistics of her plan to create a 2% wealth tax on those worth more than $50 million by comparing the tax to the property taxes that homeowners pay.
She asked all the homeowners to raise their hands. “You’ve been paying a wealth tax forever. They just call it a property tax,” Warren said, explaining that her wealth tax would work the same way for “the stock portfolios, the diamonds, the Rembrandts, and the yachts” of the rich.
When talking in Salem, Iowa, later that day about the importance of her proposal to increase affordable housing, Warren gave a history lesson about redlining.
“Starting decades and decades ago, America started subsidizing housing so that people could purchase homes. They did it for white people, but they didn’t do it for black people,” Warren said. “The consequence — think about this — has been felt generation after generation.”
She used hand gestures to demonstrate the wealth gap between white families and black families. In the early 1960s, “the gap between back home ownership and white home ownership was 28 points,” Warren said, explaining that legislation prohibiting redlining helped close that gap.
The more than 20 candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination talk about many of the same issues that matter to primary and caucus voters — climate change, healthcare, and money in politics, for instance — leaving some voters who attend multiple candidate events unsure about whom to support. Some voters who attended campaign events for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., in Iowa on Saturday said that they were not any closer to making a decision.
Warren’s instructional style, honed during years of teaching at Harvard Law School, is helping her win over voters, or at least place her among their top preferred candidate picks.
[Also read: ‘I don’t do polls’: Elizabeth Warren says her policy proposals come from the heart]
Retired college music teacher Joel Brown, 76, told the Washington Examiner at Warren’s campaign stop in Salem that he appreciated the way that Warren described the influence of lobbyists and money in politics.
“The lobbying thing, I had not heard it said exactly like that,” Brown said. “The way she explained it I thought was really helpful.” He said that he also likes the way that South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, another presidential hopeful, describes issues.
Small business owner Soley Thorsteinsdottir, 27, said at Warren’s event in Fairfield, Iowa, on Sunday that Warren not only had robust plans, but also made the ideas approachable. “She broke it down simply enough for everybody to grasp,” Thorsteinsdottir said, noting the cheers after key lines in Warren’s speech.
While Thorsteinsdottir likes Warren and would like to see a female Democratic nominee, she is worried about whether Warren or any Democrat will be able to stand up to and outshine President Trump.
Warren’s style is working for her so far. A Monmouth University poll released last week found Warren with 10% support nationally among Democratic primary and caucus voters, up from 6% in April.
