2020 Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren lost not just one, but her two home states of Massachusetts and Oklahoma to former Vice President Joe Biden on Super Tuesday.
The Massachusetts senator’s poor performance on the largest primary voting day in the country resulted in no wins from any Super Tuesday states despite a huge ground game since last summer.
Warren, 70, grew up in Oklahoma and placed fourth in the state on Tuesday night. She additionally placed third in Massachusetts, where she has lived since 1995 when she moved to Cambridge to start lecturing as a professor at Harvard. She has represented the Bay State as a U.S. senator since 2012.
On the campaign trail, Warren talked about her formative years growing up in Oklahoma and teaching public school in the state more often than her experiences in Massachusetts. The disparity led a local Boston CBS-affiliate WBZ reporter back in January to ask Warren why she seldom brings up Massachusetts.
“I talk about Massachusetts, where I’m from, right now, and talk about things we do back home,” Warren said before talking about her life in Oklahoma.
She continued, “I think it matters that all my life, I wanted to be a public school teacher. And by the time I graduated high school in Oklahoma, my family didn’t have the money for a college application, much less to send me off to four years at university. It was that $50-a-semester commuter college that opened a million doors for me. So it’s a big part of the story of why I’m so deeply and personally committed to the idea of opportunity.”
Despite Warren’s routine stump speech about her Oklahoma upbringing, the Massachusetts senator did not make a campaign stop there until late December, and her family connection to the state did not help when she was criticized by Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation for claiming Native American heritage. Her December visit marked when she met with tribal leaders in the state to discuss her previous claim of being Native American and the results of her DNA test.
Warren had previously apologized back in August for claiming Native American ancestry but offered the apology at a Sioux City, Iowa candidate forum, not in Oklahoma.
Her popularity in Massachusetts has long been a concern since she won her first Senate race in 2013 against Republican incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, who had only been in office for two years after he defeated a weak Democratic candidate in a special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat.
Warren, during her 2018 reelection, performed worse than 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in key areas of the state. According to FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich, Warren underperformed Clinton in the 12 wealthiest towns in Massachusetts. She also performed worse than Clinton in the Boston suburbs and areas of Cape Cod.
“It’s not just Elizabeth Warren’s approval %s that are unimpressive. Fact: in *2018,* a blue wave year, she underperformed Clinton’s 2016 share in 228/351 towns in Massachusetts. If you think that bodes well for her chances of outperforming Clinton in MI/PA/WI etc….,” tweeted Cook Political Report editor Dave Wasserman back in July.
Biden took home victories in both of his opponent’s home states, dealing a blow to former front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders in Oklahoma and claiming a win in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Warren came in third in Massachusetts and did not earn any delegates in Oklahoma.
