Naomi Lim and Emily Larsen of the Washington Examiner report on Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren’s prospects in a key 2020 state.
As Elizabeth Warren rises in the polls, Democratic voters are concerned the Massachusetts senator is electable enough to defeat President Trump in 2020.
“We saw Warren up close, and you could see her eyes, and she was intense, there’s no question about that. I think she takes off too big a bite as a candidate,” said Jim Mikulanec, a 70-year-old retired sales manager who saw Warren in Indianola.
Warren’s refusal to say whether middle-class taxes would go up in order to fund her proposed “Medicare for all” single-payer health care plan is also causing jitters.
“She lacked what I call critical substance on health care,” Mikulanec said. “Where did they get the money? How do they justify it? How does it come about?”
The questions come as Warren can boast of a place in the top-tier of the 16-person Democratic primary field. She still trails former Vice President Joe Biden in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, 28.8% to 24.2%, but that represents a steady climb from spring and early summer when she was in the single digits.
Erin Monaghan, a 54-year-old nonprofit director who attended an event in Vinton, Iowa for California Sen. Kamala Harris, recognized that the risk in nominating Warren, 70, is that she might not capture older age groups. “If the younger voters turnout, she’ll be fine. If it’s a generation and older, they’re probably not gonna vote for her,” Monaghan said.
