Presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have had a bit of a dustup. The two Democratic presidential candidates representing the party’s left wing in the 2020 race found themselves at odds this weekend after Warren responded to a call script for volunteers that was reportedly issued by the Sanders campaign. The entire episode is a lesson in the growing friction in the Democratic presidential primary — and a telling example of just how ridiculous and bitter things may get.
It all started with a report by Politico, which included written guidelines for Sanders volunteers calling potential voters who might support other candidates. In the script, Sanders volunteers are reportedly advised to characterize Warren supporters as highly educated and affluent.
“I like Elizabeth Warren. [optional],” the script begins, according to Politico. “In fact, she’s my second choice. But here’s my concern about her.” The script then questions Warren’s ability to get elected based on her base’s demographics, reading, “People who support her are highly educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what” and “She's bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party.”
“We need to turn out disaffected working-class voters if we’re going to beat Trump,” the script’s section on Warren concludes. In a section apparently about “status quo candidates,” the document also mentions the lack of enthusiasm around former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign and the low support among young and African-American voters for Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
According to Politico, the Sanders campaign did not deny the script’s authenticity. Politico reporter Alex Thompson took to Twitter to deny claims from Sanders supporters that the script was uploaded by a volunteer and not an official campaign document, writing that the document had “Paid for by Bernie 2020” written on it.
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Warren responded to the script on Sunday, telling reporters, “I was disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me. Bernie knows me and has known me for a long time. He knows who I am, where I come from, what I have worked on and fought for, and the coalition and grassroots movements we’re trying to build.”
“Democrats want to win in 2020,” Warren continued. “We all saw the impact of the factionalism in 2016, and we can’t have a repeat of that. Democrats need to unite our party, and that means pulling in all parts of the Democratic coalition.”
President Donald Trump, who BuzzFeed News reported last week was starting to “fixate” on Sanders as a potential 2020 rival, apparently caught news of the entire exchange, echoing Warren when he wrote on Twitter on Monday morning that Sanders’s volunteers were “trashing” Warren, questioning whether or not a “feud” was brewing. If this presidential voyeurism doesn’t capture just how absurd this entire situation is, I’m not sure what might.
Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau, also mentioned disappointment and 2016’s “factionalism” in a fundraising email sent over the weekend with the subject line “What Bernie’s campaign says about you.” The email accused those raising concerns about the demographics of Warren’s base of “dismissing the potency of our grassroots movement” and pitched Warren as a unity candidate. Julián Castro, a 2020 candidate who just dropped out and endorsed Warren, also used similar framing to describe her campaign over the weekend, according to the New York Times.
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What’s curious about the “unity candidate” argument regarding questions about the wealthier supporters in Warren's movement is how it squares with Warren’s attacks on Buttigieg just last month. On the December debate stage, Warren laid into Buttigieg over fundraising from “billionaires in wine caves,” who hosted a fundraiser for the former mayor.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Sanders didn’t take responsibility for the script, called the situation a “media blowup,” and maintained that Warren is a “very good friend.” He said the candidates will continue to “debate the issues.”
“We have hundreds of employees. Elizabeth Warren has hundreds of employees,” Sanders said when questioned about the script’s origins. “And people sometimes say things that they shouldn’t. You have heard me give many speeches. Have I ever said one negative word about Elizabeth Warren?”
The script itself had nothing bad to say about Warren or the highly educated, affluent people who are likely to support her, a trend that has been documented across polls throughout the campaign. As Politico explained last July, Warren and Sanders's bases of support are somewhat distinct despite their relative political proximity; more highly educated voters were more likely to support Warren while lower-income voters with less education more often supported Sanders. In September the Washington Post attributed that to Warren’s “wonkish” — i.e., policy-focused — campaign style.
As FiveThirtyEight broke down in October, Warren is doing particularly well with white, college-educated voters and starting to expand her base by making inroads with nonwhite voters without a college degree and more moderate voters. But a poll later that month still found her supporters were likely to be white, wealthy, and college-educated.
This raises several questions about this episode. Is it “factionalism” to express concerns about another candidate’s potential to win in November? Is it okay to discuss another candidate’s base at all, even with empirical data behind it? Given the accuracy and mild tone of the script’s comments about Warren — and the fact that presidential candidates have always had to find ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors — might the Massachusetts senator be better served by taking this beef off the grill? Is this beef at all or really more of a Beyond Burger?
Whether or not you believe the Sanders campaign was attacking Warren or that this situation is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, the timing of the dustup is notable. The entire situation comes as candidates are in the fevered final weeks of the run-up to the February 3 Iowa caucuses, the first contest in the Democratic primary process for 2020. Sanders and Warren placed first and second, respectively, in a major poll released Friday.
While polling isn’t the be-all, end-all indicator of political reality (a lesson many learned the hard way in 2016), the fact that the duo is at the front of the four-person pack leading the race means we’ll see more sparring between their campaigns.
And as if on cue, while I was writing this piece, the latest twist in this saga unfolded, with multiple sources telling CNN that Sanders told Warren in a December 2018 meeting that a woman couldn’t win the presidency. Sanders denied the characterization of the meeting to CNN, accusing “staff who weren't in the room” of “lying about what happened.” Warren’s communications director declined to comment. As the news cycle spins over again, it seems like someone is turning up the gas on their grill.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Stood Together on Radical Progressive Ideas in the July Democratic Debate
