Elizabeth Warren Campaign Strategy: Defend Unworkable Plans Fearlessly

The early stages of the Democratic presidential-nomination contest were dominated by the brute fact of former vice president Joe Biden’s lead among the (partly overlapping) categories of economic and cultural moderates and African Americans. That made college-educated white liberals a crucial constituency for Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Kamala Harris. Warren’s candidacy has endured because she carefully and consistently went after these voters, while Beto and Harris misunderstood and offended them.

College-educated white liberals make up the majority of the most affluent, secular, and ideological segment of the Democratic electorate. White liberals have become more extreme over the past ten years. These voters also play an outsize role in Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s Democratic contests. Since those states don’t have a large share of nonwhite votes, and with Biden seeming to dominate among more-moderate and less-educated voters, any alternative to Biden must therefore include — indeed rely on — college-educated white liberals to advance in the early contests. Or at least that is how it looked in the summer of 2019.

About the Author

Peter Spiliakos

Peter Spiliakos lives in Massachusetts and is a former columnist for the online version of First Things.

The early stages of the Democratic presidential-nomination contest were dominated by the brute fact of former vice president Joe Biden’s lead among the (partly overlapping) categories of economic and cultural moderates and African Americans. That made college-educated white liberals a crucial constituency for Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, and Kamala Harris. Warren’s candidacy has endured because she carefully and consistently went after these voters, while Beto and Harris misunderstood and offended them.

College-educated white liberals make up the majority of the most affluent, secular, and ideological segment of the Democratic electorate. White liberals have become more extreme over the past ten years. These voters also play an outsize role in Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s Democratic contests. Since those states don’t have a large share of nonwhite votes, and with Biden seeming to dominate among more-moderate and less-educated voters, any alternative to Biden must therefore include — indeed rely on — college-educated white liberals to advance in the early contests. Or at least that is how it looked in the summer of 2019.