Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has officially taken the first step toward a 2020 presidential bid, announcing Monday that she had launched an exploratory committee. Warren is the first high-profile Democratic candidate to make this kind of announcement.
Despite all the media buzz, Warren won’t get far without the support of millennials and Generation Z, which raises the question: Do young people care about her?
Warren’s socialist-leaning ideas are unquestionably attractive to young people. A Gallup poll this past summer found that 51 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 are positive about socialism, versus 45 percent who said they were positive about capitalism. The latter is down 12 points in just two years.
Warren loves the word “fairness,” obsesses about leveling the playing field, and likes to target billionaires who have benefited from corporate greed. While she doesn’t try to distance herself from the world “capitalism,” she wants the government to play a decidedly activist role in the markets.
While some strategists say that Warren and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, would cancel each other out in a primary, others say the #MeToo movement would give Warren a gender advantage over Sanders.
However, the latest polls among young people seem to disagree. According to a Politico poll from November, 29 percent of registered voters aged 18-29 said that Sanders would be their first choice to be the 2020 Democratic nominee for president, followed by Joe Biden at 21 percent; Warren trailed way behind at 4 percent. A CNN poll from October had similar results, with young voters favoring Sanders. In both polls, Biden showed the most favor among Democrats as a whole.
Her reputation in the Senate is a double-edged sword. While she is seen as a progressive leader by most in her party, an editorial in the Boston Globe, her hometown paper, called her a “divisive figure.”
“Divisive” isn’t exactly a trait that wins over millennial and Gen Z snowflakes, most of whom are closely aligned with the Democratic Party.
So what makes Warren special? Her gender won’t matter if she ends up going head-to-head with other female potentials like Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., or Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. Her policies don’t resonate with young people like those of Sanders. And she doesn’t have Biden’s phony charm.
Elizabeth Warren may persist as a contender, but her lack of popularity with young people will likely make her campaign a short one.
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is writer from California. He is a National Journalism Center graduate and formerly served as a development officer for Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch.
