The hits just keep on coming for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s would-be POTUS bid. The former front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination has dropped to a woeful 7th place in the latest CNN poll, behind former Secretary of State John Kerry (who’s unlikely to even run) and newcomer Rep. Beto O’Rourke–who just lost his bid for U.S. Senate.
At 3 percent, Warren is tied with billionaire Michael Bloomberg and little-known Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. This is a dramatic decline from four years ago when progressive groups like MoveOn.org were mounting a $1 million “Draft Warren” campaign.
On Saturday, a new CNN/Des Moines Register poll added to Warren’s woes, showing that among likely Iowa caucus attendees, the top names are Biden, Bernie and Beto–with Warren yet again in single digits.
This is a dramatic turnaround for Warren, once the darling of America’s progressive movement. As recently as May, Warren led the Democratic pack in a Suffolk poll and in August the Boston Globe was using the word “front-runner” to describe their home-state senator.
(Artwork via CNN)
Not anymore.
The Globe has since editorialized that Warren is “too divisive,” has “missed her moment” and should drop out of the 2018 race altogether. The new CNN poll is just the latest with Warren in the single digits and in the back of the pack.
While Sen. Warren’s sagging poll numbers are surprising, they’re not actually a surprise. In October, NHJournal reported concerns among Massachusetts Democrats over Warren’s potential candidacy and questions about her recent political performances. And Harry Enten, a political data analyst now with CNN, recently reported that Sen. Warren underperformed in her re-election bid in Massachusetts earlier this year.
Two top-level New Hampshire Democrats both recently told NHJournal that they didn’t know of any activists supporting Sen. Warren in 2020. “Her name just doesn’t come up,” one Democratic player told NHJournal.
NH State Rep. John Cloutier is the kind of Democrat one would expect to see backing, or at least leaning toward Warren. A veteran Democrat who represents Claremont (one of the most liberal cities in the state) and backed Bernie Sanders in 2016, Cloutier told the Valley News he’s looking for a younger candidate in 2018. “I think we need a fresh face, with all due respect to Bernie and Joe and Hillary,” Cloutier said. “We need someone who is going to unite the party, appeal to independents to some extent, and be just a total difference from Donald Trump, frankly.”
