Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ended her presidential bid on March 5 following her failure to win a single contest on Super Tuesday. Warren’s choice to drop out was long overdue, brought on by a steady decline in the polls and a lackluster performance in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. Despite her poor performance toward the end of her campaign, Warren stated that she would stay in the race, citing that she would hold onto her delegates in a brokered convention.
When it was clear that Warren’s path to the nomination had all but ended, many Democrats hoped that she would drop out and endorse fellow progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). An endorsement of Sanders would have been welcomed, considering Sanders’ invitation for Warren to run in 2016. Warren’s decision to stay in the race through Super Tuesday was disappointing, but it was nevertheless well within her rights as a candidate.
Warren’s next step, however, is unforgivable and a betrayal to the progressive ideals in which she claimed to stand behind. Rather than supporting Sanders as he would likely have done for her, Warren chose to remain tight-lipped with her endorsement. Rather than rallying her supporters around the only progressive candidate left in the race, Warren refused to endorse anyone. She opted to give herself time to think and reflect before deciding on a candidate to support and told reporters she would “take a deep breath and spend a little time on that.”
Over a month later, Warren has finally finished “reflecting” and has decided to endorse Biden, who she referred to as “a big risk for our party and our country” at a California rally in early March. Her failure to support Sanders was a tacit endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden, who became a frontrunner in the race following a consolidation of the moderate base on the eve of Super Tuesday. Biden’s rise as the moderates’ candidate of choice was made clear by his endorsements from ex-rivals former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who both suspended their campaigns and announced their endorsements of Biden before the March 3 primaries.
Sanders was comfortable facing Biden when the former vice president was in competition with Klobuchar and Buttigieg for the more moderate electorate. Following their exits from the race, Sanders’ campaign was in need of consolidation of support to counter that which formed around Biden, one Warren could have helped to build. Warren ignored this need, deciding to remain on the ballot, rather than channeling her influence to support Sanders.
In the days following her decision to suspend her candidacy, Warren embarked on a self-care retreat of sorts, during which she pondered what may have doomed her campaign. An interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow surfaced the same day Warren’s campaign ended. During this interview, Warren alluded to her disdain of Sanders and his movement, calling out the so-called “Bernie Bros” and their lack of online civility. Warren’s reluctance to work with Sanders simply because his supporters tweeted her the snake emoji is telling of her character. Warren’s supporters and media outlets at large adamantly portrayed her as a victim of sexism and online harassment from impolite voters, in a tone eerily familiar to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton following her 2016 defeat. Warren chose the tactic of allocating blame to others rather than addressing the actual faults of her campaign.
A common defense voiced for Warren’s neutrality is that she owes nothing to Sanders. It is true that she owes nothing to Sanders personally, but she does owe it to her supporters to deliver on her commitment to progressive policies such as raising the minimum wage and ensuring universal health care. In failing to build a coalition with Sanders, Warren is selfishly putting herself above her promise to the members of the progressive movement. Warren’s supporters should be conscious of her strategies as she continues her political career.
Warren’s downfall in the current president campaign is a result of her poor political instincts in addressing the Democratic Party’s left wing. Earlier in the campaign, Warren was a more insistent champion of progressivism, as her platform was almost identical to Sanders’. Since she needed to distinguish herself from her more established and experienced progressive counterpart, this ideological similarity created a problem for her campaign. So Warren went down the path of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Buttigieg, both self-identified progressive candidates who gradually drifted toward the ideological center and presented themselves as more moderate, “electable” candidates later into their respective campaigns. This shift in Warren’s philosophy can be seen in her hesitation on Medicare for All and her turn toward a super PAC to finance her campaign. Her tepid embrace of more corporate-friendly policy and pandering to woke liberalism were eerily reminiscent of Harris’ failed campaign. As the presidential race dragged on, Warren found herself stuck between the progressive and establishment wings of the Democratic Party. With no clear lane between Sanders and Biden, her path to the nomination narrowed.
Warren had a chance to endorse Sanders and communicate her desire to see a progressive in the White House. Her support could have solidified Sanders as a strong candidate to defeat Biden when he most needed it. Following Biden’s Super Tuesday endorsements from former rivals Buttigieg and Klobuchar, Warren’s affirmation would have enabled Sanders to continue as a viable candidate. Instead, Warren acted as a sore loser in the wake of her defeat and decisively failed to back the leader of the progressive movement. Warren was quick to point the finger once she admitted defeat but was seemingly uninterested in seeing how the race would continue in her departure.
When questioned on her neutrality, Warren has given vague answers as to why she did not continue the trend of other former candidates who endorsed Biden or Sanders. This left us to speculate that Warren would wait to definitively support a Democratic candidate only once it is certain who will challenge President Donald Trump in the general election. On April 15th she did exactly that, not wanting to risk making a political miscalculation by endorsing a candidate in a competitive primary. Warren’s silence is a betrayal to the progressive movement and a true testament of where her priorities lie. Warren failed to endorse Sanders in 2016, and she fell short once again in 2020. She could have made a serious contribution to Sanders’ campaign and subsequently the progressive movement. Her support for Sanders could have provided his campaign with the necessary momentum and votes to take on Biden in the Democratic primary. With Warren’s selfish commitment to continue running and remain neutral once dropping out, the progressive branch of the Democratic Party was left splintered in the face of Biden’s strong, center-left coalition. Biden’s lead has only grown since, leading him to become the presumptive nominee, for which he has Warren’s inaction to thank.
Sam Walsh (22C) is from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
