Sen. Elizabeth Warren has made goals of “rebuilding the middle class” and fighting income inequality a central message of her presidential campaign, and yet a new poll finds that she actually has half the support among those earning under $50,000 than she does among those earning over $100,000.
Overall, a new Quinnipiac poll finds Warren at 15%, in second place but well behind front-runner Joe Biden, who is at 34%.
But a further breakdown of the numbers by income level shows that Warren is underperforming among voters on the lower end of the income ladder. Though Warren polls at 22% among those earning over $100,000, that support falls to 13% among those earning between $50,000 and $100,000, and to 11% among those earning under $50,000.
For Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has a similar anti-corporate message to Warren’s, the opposite is true. He’s at just 7% among those earning over $100,000, but at 17% among those earning under $50,000.
In addition to appealing to a more well-off electorate, Warren’s supporters tend to be much whiter. She polls at 18% among whites, and just 4% among black voters.
In contrast, Biden’s support is much more equally distributed among the income levels, at 30% among those earning over $100,000, 33% among those earning under $50,000, and 42% of those in between. And, at 53%, he actually does better among black voters than he does among whites, at 32%.
There should always be a certain level of caution when looking at the demographic breakdown of support, because the sample sizes are often too small.
But at least when it comes to the racial gap in Warren’s support, that has been a consistent feature in her polling.
Just last week, a Monmouth poll of South Carolina found she had 21% support among whites, and just 2% support among black voters.
Suffice it to say, if Warren doesn’t find a way to broaden her appeal beyond relatively well-off white voters, she’s going to be doomed.
