Former Michigan Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed was a top surrogate for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential effort, a Justice Democrat, and now, head of a PAC focused on liberal down-ballot candidates. Also, he just took to the pages of Newsweek to write that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren “as a running mate would make Biden unstoppable in the Midwest.” I don’t think anyone makes Biden “unstoppable” in the key battleground states—they’ll be real dogfights—but it does show that when it comes to party unity, the left flank is closing ranks around Warren.
Old polling and a brand-new one agree—Warren would best help Biden unite the party.
We’ve already seen two polls (here and here) show that Warren is the preferred pick of Democratic voters—including among Black voters. The tea leaves say that Biden will pick Warren, but who ever trusted tea leaves for prediction making, right? And a trial balloon for Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar last week didn’t just land with a thud, what was left of it was nuked by Jonathan Capehart in the Washington Post, who placed much of the blame on her for the police culture in Minneapolis that led to George Floyd’s murder earlier this week.
“Every single person in every single community in this country deserves to feel safe,” Klobuchar wrote in her statement about Floyd’s killing. While her overall sentiment is right and true, it also totally ignores the more complicated reality African Americans face daily. That Klobuchar fails to even mention that Floyd was killed by police exemplifies the problem she has with African Americans, why they don’t trust her and why they don’t want Biden to put her on the ticket.
While Capehart admitted his support for California Sen. Kamala Harris, he also noted “Not all white women talked about as prospective Biden running mates are created equal in the eyes of black voters. Some have more standing than others. For instance, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has it. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) absolutely does not.” (His aunt Gloria wants Warren.)
The piece is genuinely brutal, Capehart’s anti-Klobuchar case is persuasive, and as we saw in that CBS poll three weeks ago, his aunt Gloria is with the Black Democratic majority:
Among Black Democrats |
Biden “SHOULD CONSIDER”
|
Biden “SHOULD PICK”
|
WARREN |
72 |
28 |
ABRAMS |
61 |
25 |
HARRIS |
60 |
21 |
KLOBUCHAR |
44 |
8 |
Now we have new polling, from Morning Consult, that confirms what we keep hearing and seeing, “A new Morning Consult/Politico poll gauging the potential impact of Biden’s choice of a running mate found that among nine women reportedly in the mix, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would have the biggest net positive impact on his candidacy against President Donald Trump in November.” The net positive are even starker among young, Latino, and Black voters.
This following chart of their results takes those who say they’d be more likely to vote for Joe Biden, minus those who say it would make them less likely, for a net total:
Net likely to vote for: |
All |
Under 45 |
45+ |
Black |
Hispanic |
Warren |
3 |
12 |
-4 |
24 |
28 |
Klobuchar |
1 |
3 |
2 |
12 |
11 |
Harris |
1 |
9 |
-3 |
19 |
13 |
Abrams |
-2 |
4 |
-8 |
17 |
7 |
The toplines suggest that none of these potential candidates will have much of an overall effect, but remember, it’s a 50-50 contest in the seven battleground states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), and a point here and a point there actually matters.
But even more importantly, Biden’s biggest demographic hurdle is young voters, and Warren delivers the biggest bang for the buck. Older voters are predominantly Republican, and clearly racist as fuck. Figures they’d give Klobuchar a slight net positive.
And among Black and brown voters, Warren really has a great deal of credibility. She’s been cultivating ties and an agenda for marginalized communities for years, and while that work didn’t pay the dividends she hoped for during the primary campaign, she’s reaping the rewards now, making her the only white woman VP contender truly palatable to Black and brown voters.
I still content that it should be a two-person race between Warren and Georgia’s Stacey Abrams, especially given how important Georgia will be this November (for both the presidency and Senate). But for whatever reason, she no longer appears to be a top contender for the job.
Remember, the vice presidential nominee has one job—to help the ticket win in November. When you give other considerations more weight you get Tim Kaine and losing presidential tickets. Hillary Clinton wanted someone who could step into her job on day one, and neither got the job. What Clinton needed more than anything else was a united party after her divisive primary, and that divided party led to her loss.
We may not have the animosity this year as we did in 2016, but we do have a more generalized apathy, as young voters who supported Sanders remain aloof to the presumptive nominee.
The good news is that there’s been some obvious progress on these numbers, but note that among Democrats 35-49, Biden’s favorability rate is 74-16—a full 37 net points better. Among Democrats 50-64? 85-8. And Democrats over the age of 65? 87-8.
Biden is already winning. If he could motivate and lock down the youth vote, he wouldn’t just lock down his own victory, but could possibly expand the map down ballot.
Thus, it matters that Warren would be best poised to rally youth support for the ticket, making her, easily, the best option of the rumored three top contenders.