Biden’s coalition, writes Ron Brownstein, looks a lot like the coalition that won most Democratic presidential primaries in the late 20th century: blue-collar whites and African Americans, the so-called “beer track” voters who gave the nomination to Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore. That coalition broke up in 2008 and 2016, with African Americans aligning with college-educated white liberals instead of with blue-collar whites to deliver the nomination to Barack Obama and later Hillary Clinton. But it appears to have re-emerged, for now.
Warren, on the other hand, is a “wine track” candidate whose appeal is concentrated among college-educated whites: the kind of Democratic voters who backed Gary Hart and Bill Bradley. To win the nomination, she’s going to have to start showing more appeal either to African Americans or to white voters without college degrees. Does she have “a plan for that”?