When it comes to Joe Biden’s choice of a running mate, the odds keep changing. Two weeks ago, everyone was betting on Kamala Harris. Then attention shifted to Amy Klobuchar. Now all the buzz is about Elizabeth Warren.
It’s almost like each potential candidate is being systematically tested for market reaction.
Alex Thompson reports at Politico:
Famed Democratic pollster: Warren as VP would lead to Biden victoryStan Greenberg, one of the Democratic Party’s longtime leading pollsters, urged Hillary Clinton in 2016 to pick Elizabeth Warren as her vice president. He thinks Clinton would be president had she listened.Now Greenberg — who popularized the term “Reagan Democrats” and came to prominence as Bill Clinton’s lead pollster — is urging Joe Biden’s team to heed the same advice.Earlier this month, he briefed top Biden campaign officials on two battleground surveys conducted by his firm. Accompanied by a slide presentation that was obtained by POLITICO, Greenberg addressed the question hanging over Biden and his inner circle: Which vice presidential candidate will help the most in November?The conclusion was blunt: “Sen. Warren is the obvious solution.”Biden’s biggest problem, Greenberg said, is that the Democratic Party has not unified behind him. In fact, Biden is now behind where Clinton was with Bernie Sanders voters in 2016, with more than 20 percent of the democratic socialist’s backers saying they would not vote for him, even as 87 percent of them pledge to vote for a Democrat for Congress. At a similar point in the 2016 cycle, roughly 15 percent of Sanders voters said they wouldn’t vote for Hillary Cllinton and Greenberg’s own polling through Democracy Corps around Election Day found the same.
I’m not a famous pollster, but I don’t believe Elizabeth Warren will solve Joe Biden’s problem with Bernie Sanders supporters. They have not forgotten Warren’s attempt to paint Bernie as a sexist during a debate with an assist from CNN.
Jonathan Easley of The Hill has more:
The veteran pollster tested Warren’s core messages of anti-corruption and anti-rigged economy and found those messages polled “off the charts” among the voters that Biden needs to reach.“The Biden messages are competitive with Trump messages, but do not win intense support, and they are weaker than the Warren messages on corruption and rigged politics and the messages on working families,” Greenberg wrote.“Warren’s corruption and rigged politics messages poll off the chart with non-Biden voters and millennials. Warren’s reform messages are also dominant with Biden’s ‘winnable voters,’ white working class women, and independents.”
One thing Warren has going for her is that Amy Klobuchar just took a big hit. As we reported last night, Klobuchar failed to prosecute Derick Chauvin, the cop at the center of George Floyd’s death, while she served as Hennepin County attorney.
This is starting to look like a two-woman contest between Warren and Harris.
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