Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who finished a humiliating third in her home state of Massachusetts, has no path to the nomination. While the conventional wisdom is that she needs to drop out if the Left has any hope of consolidating in time to stop Joe Biden, the reality is the opposite. Any Democrat who wants to stop Biden from becoming the nominee should hope that Warren remains in the race as long as possible.
Though I explained this theory in detail before Iowa, it’s even more true now. The reality is that even though Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters are often lumped together, they actually appeal to different constituencies beyond ideology. Some Warren supporters may prefer that Democrats nominate a woman or somebody (relatively) younger. Or they may prefer her policy proposals, or see her as a more loyal Democrat.
Once she drops out, some of her supporters would inevitably go to Biden. Should Warren remain in the race, it would allow the non-Biden contingent to maximize their support by grabbing all voters who could conceivably vote for a far-left candidate.
Following his huge Super Tuesday, Biden is in strong position to win the most delegates in the Democratic primaries, if not an outright majority. And if Biden falls short of a majority, the good news is that as things stand now, most of the remaining delegates (i.e., those not won by him or Sanders) have gone to people who are now endorsing him. With results still pouring in from California, the New York Times Upshot model is projecting that Biden will come out of the big day with 45% of the delegates. But if you add the projected totals of recent Biden endorsers, Michael Bloomberg (104 delegates), Pete Buttigieg (26 delegates), and Amy Klobuchar (7 delegates), then he actually ends up with a majority. Put another way, if Biden is close to a majority but not quite there going into the convention, other candidates with a total of 137 pledge delegates would be asking their delegates to vote Biden on the first ballot and prevent a contested convention.
If Warren drops out now, according to the same model, she would only have 97 delegates — so she wouldn’t be in as much of a position to help Sanders. However, if she remains in the race, she could still keep amassing delegates. Were delegates to be split three ways instead of two in a number of contests, it will become harder for Biden to achieve a majority. At some point, maybe as soon as next week, she could pass the Bloomberg-Buttigieg-Klobuchar total, giving her more influence then them if no candidate receives a majority.
Furthermore, if she remains in the race, she’ll be able to participate in the March 15 debate. Instead of it merely being Sanders and Biden hitting each other, Warren and Sanders would be able to team up against Biden and make the case in favor of more radical change. Alternatively, with Warren on the stage as an attack dog against Biden, Sanders would be able to take the high ground and attempt to broaden his appeal.
There is, of course, a bit of risk to this strategy. There’s a worry that if Warren remains in the race, she’ll merely siphon votes away from Sanders without reaching the 15% threshold and thus wouldn’t even be keeping delegates away from Biden. But were I a member of the Left, I would consider this a risk worth taking, for multiple reasons.
One, if the campaign continues on its current trajectory, Biden is going to continue to consolidate support and run away with the nomination anyway. There isn’t much to lose at this point. Two, with the further consolidation of the field, it becomes easier for Warren to meet the 15% threshold as she would be one of only three candidates making a serious play for delegates. This is especially true given that chunk of Super Tuesday voting occurred early, before some candidates had dropped out. In California, for instance, Warren is currently at 12.1% statewide. Yet 13% of the electorate cast ballots for Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, or Andrew Yang, who have all dropped out. Just a fraction of those voters could have put her over the top.
Of course, it isn’t clear what Warren ultimately wants at this point. Throughout her political career she has vacillated between being an ideological warrior and a party loyalist. If she wants to unify the party (or at least not go out of her way to amplify party divisions), then it would make sense for her to drop out immediately. But if her goal is to stop Biden and do everything in her power to try and get somebody at the top of the ticket calling for structural change, it makes sense for her to remain in the race.
