Things are not looking good for Massachusetts’ Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D). Her presidential campaign, according to Politico, “nosedives in new national poll,” and the Washington Post is asking, “What happened to Elizabeth Warren?”
The numbers both in Iowa and nationwide are unmistakably bad for Warren. In Iowa, Politico’s Natasha Korecki reports that Warren has lost “her mojo” and that Democrats are starting to wonder if she “peaked too soon.”
Elizabeth Warren’s star is starting to dim in Iowa.In a state where fortunes can change on a dime, Pete Buttigieg has seized the momentum in recent weeks as Warren has slipped. Top Iowa Democrats attribute the shift to the scrutiny Warren is receiving as a frontrunner — including attacks from her rivals — as well as her struggles defending her plan to remake the nation’s health care system.. . . . “You have to wonder whether she peaked too soon,” former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, co-chair of the advocacy group Focus on Rural Iowa, said of Warren. “In Iowa, she is wearing some — [it’s] like she established her endorsers and her delegates and that’s all there is.”While the top-polling candidates are sure to rise and fall before the Feb. 3 caucuses, a dozen Democratic activists, county chairs and strategists in the state said Warren is no longer viewed as the prohibitive frontrunner there. Her performance reflects her struggles of late nationally, including one poll out Tuesday that showed her support cut in half in the span of a month.
On a national level, as Korecki notes, Quinnipiac’s latest poll shows Warren losing 14 points in a single month.
Politico’s Caitlin Oprysko reports:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s support among Democratic primary voters nationwide plunged 50 percent over the past month, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll, signaling that the shake-ups in the primary field are far from over.. . . . But Warren’s plummet — 14 points since the previous Quinnipiac poll taken a month ago — represents a brutal dive as the first nominating contests of 2020 inch closer. Warren has come under fire over the past few months since a summertime ascendance lifted her into the top tier of the primary field. She has received particularly intense scrutiny for her “Medicare for All” plan, including how she would pay for it.
We’ve covered Warren’s Medicare for All problems, and all of them have been self-inflicted. It all started when she announced that she was “with Bernie” on his untenable Medicare for All plan. Then came her empty promises that the middle class would not be taxed. She later released a revised plan that holds its own myriad problems, including compounded issues regarding who will pay for it.
There seems little doubt that these issues have contributed to her nosedive among Democrat primary voters. Democrat primary voters care about health care, and they care about beating President Trump. In both areas, Warren’s unforced errors create doubt in their minds.
She seems to have treated health care as an afterthought after she declared she stood “with Bernie.” She repeated her stance for “free” universal health care for every person in America (including illegals). She promised that billionaires would pay for it, and average Americans would save money and on.
Only when pressed for details did she add a Medicare for All plan to her already massive stack of plans for broad-based, disruptive change across every aspect of Americans’ lives. And when it bombed with both the left and the right, she rushed out a new plan . . . that also bombed.
It’s not exactly the sort of performance likely to beat Trump. Democratic primary voters see it and appear to be test-driving Mayor Pete who, not incidentally, has become a vocal opponent of Medicare for All.
For her part, Warren is dismissing the polling data and what it should be telling her and her team.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is dismissing a recent Quinnipiac University survey showing her support drop 14 points nationally.
“It’s the same answer it’s always been. I don’t do polls,” Warren told reporters in Knoxville, Iowa, on Tuesday evening. “I’m out here fighting every day on behalf of working families.”
Working families, however, seem to be losing interest in having her in their corner. At least those among Democrat primary voters.
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