Why Elizabeth Warren lost her home state of Massachusetts

[Vivienne235729]

Last edited Wed Mar 4, 2020, 01:29 AM - Edit history (1)

Warren has struggled to capture independent voters — especially men. As I wrote in July, Warren has long had a complicated relationship with voters in Massachusetts, a state she’s lived in for more than two decades and represented in the US Senate since 2012. The fact that she’s on Morning Consult’s list of the 10 most unpopular senators has raised eyebrows. If Warren’s such a great candidate, some have wondered, why didn’t she have better favorability ratings in her home state?

The answer is complex, and has to do with the gender politics Warren also has experienced nationally in the 2020 primary.

Gender politics have long been an issue for Warren
Warren has had a consistent gender imbalance when it comes to male and female voters. While she typically performs well among women (both in her home state and nationally), men present much more of a challenge. That was true on Super Tuesday as well.

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/3/21161603/bernie-sanders-beat-elizabeth-warren-in-massachusetts

[VarryOn]

1. In the end, there just wasnt much extraordinary about Warren...

I wanted to be on her team. She'll be quite useful where she is.

[Vivienne235729]

2. I'm really sad that she lost her home state and did so poorly.

[VarryOn]

3. I'm with you on that...

I really want to see a woman as president. She would have made a good one.

[jcgoldie]

4. What exactly is extraordinary about Joe Biden?

Nice thesis by the way now please extrapolate.

[VarryOn]

6. I admit, not much...

But he seems to have more appeal...at this moment... than anyone else. That's what I look for.

I like Warren, but she's finished now that she doesn't appear to have won Massachusetts.

[wnylib]

15. In this race, his knowledge and

experience in governing makes him stand out. He's been in the executive branch. He has both domestic and foreign policy experience. He knows what governance is, how it runs and should run. He knows how to find good people to appoint to offices. Competent people. He knows how to clean up the Trump mess. He knows how to get things done through working with other politicians.

He is a lifelong liberal Democrat. He speaks to working and middle class people and always has.

He can win down ticket candidates for Congress, which is very important for Dems.

In this year's crop of candidates, those qualities make him stand out among the others. More experience than Pete.
Pete and Amy. More ability to appeal across race and class lines than Warren. He is a unifier, not a divider like Sanders, who is a loner, coming from outside to both use and denigrate the party.

With a Dem Congress that Biden can bring, there is also a greater chance, ironically, for progressives like Warren to get reforms through Congress. If Biden carries enough Senators with him so that we can spare appointing one to a position, Warren could become AG.

[StarfishSaver]

18. You're right. But, not taking anything away from Biden, this an example

of how institutional sexism handicaps women.

Biden has been able to build up a well of experience and goodwill that help make him extraordinary and stand out because he benefitted from a system that allowed men with no experience or anything special going for them to think they should be and then enabled them to become a Senator when they were just 30 years old - and then spend the next 40 years developing a strong resume.

Elizabeth Warren, who is about Biden's age, had no opportunity to become a Senator in the early 1970s. Like many women of her age, she had to take a different path - in her case, she raised a family and then went into academia, a field open to smart, talented women when politics was still very restricted.

But while academia was open to women, like many endeavors that women were able to excel in, it is not treated as a "real" qualification for high public office. So, when Warren did finally get a chance to run for office, she had to start proving herself without the advantage of pointing to the previous 40 years of her experience, as Biden could do.

Biden had 40+ years to make himself "extraordinary" in the eyes of people who get to determine what "extraordinary" looks like. Warren had to start from scratch only a few years ago.

This is not a knock on Biden at all. It's a knock on a sexist and racist system, the remnants of which continue to plague women and minority candidates and give advantages to white male candidates.

[wnylib]

21. I agree about the sexism.

As a 70 year old woman, I have experienced it all my life in one form or other.

I remained undecided for a long time between Warren and Biden. I really like Warren and believe she would be an excellent president. She is very intelligent, energetic, quick witted, genuinely dedicated to what she does, and knows how to get things done. I have watched the media act as if she isn't there. Maybe people fear that since Hilkary did not beat Trump, another woman could not do it either. Or maybe her push for huge reform scared people off. A lot of folks identify her with Sanders, although I see significant differences between them. I find Warren inspiring, but Sanders tiring.

But we have to deal with the world we live in for this critical election.

When Biden announced his decision to run, I was pleased because of the knowledge and experience he brings to cleaning up the Trump mess. I remember, too, the great speech he gave at the 2016 convention.

For the record, Biden did not just jump into a Senate seat. He held local office before building up enough following to move to higher office elections. But you are right that he had gender advantage in his younger years, and even still today.

For all our claims to be a leading nation, an innovative and forward nation, we still lag behind other nations on gender leadership. The UK has had 2 female Prime Ministers and several ruling queens. Elizabeth I and Victoria ruled over British golden eras with great international influence. Germany has Merkel. Israel had Golda Meier. Pakistan had Benazir Bhutto. But Americans still balk at the idea of a woman as president. Hillary came closest and should have had it.

[StarfishSaver]

23. "Maybe people fear that since Hillary did not beat Trump, another woman could not do it either"

Kind of says it all doesn't it. No one assumes that because a white man lost a race no other white men need apply.

And you're right - Biden did hold local office. He was on the New Castle County Council for 2 years - a position he was elected to two years after graduating from law school (76th out of 85 in his class). No 29-year-old woman or person of color (or of any age, for that matter) would have been elected to the Senate in 1972 (or any time before or since) based on those meager qualifications.

Men like Biden and Sanders had the advantage of being able to get into a club virtually reserved only to white men and got additional advantage because that club was deemed to be one of the only appropriate venues for building up qualifications for higher office while women and minorities were excluded and relegated to other areas that were deemed not sufficiently noteworthy to qualify them.

As a result, when the white men, women and minorities competed against each other 40 years later, while playing field seemed equal ("They're all playing by the same rules!".), The white men benefit from built-in advantages that the women and people of color don't have. Among them is the ability to claim, based on the accomplishments they racked up in the Senate during the years in which everyone else was excluded, that they are somehow more "extraordinary" than their female and minority counterparts

Another advantage they have is the the familiarity their longevity has accorded them among influential observers who dismiss any faux pas or missteps with "That's just Joe" and "We all know that's just how Bernie is" - while the female and brown people are subjected to "Hmm. She screwed up. Does she actually have what it takes?" The white men get to spend their airtime talking about what they're going to do as president while the women and POC are forced to spend the first half of their airtime answering questions about whether they can ever become president.

Again, no knock on Joe. But this is the reality.

[wnylib]

25. When Obama announced his run,

I remember the reactions from TV hosts and pundits, as well as from people I knew in my community.

On TV, Jay Leno said to Obama, "You're in it to push a policy into attention, right? Like Jesse Jackson has done. You're not really serious about being president, are you?"

I loved Obama's response and immediately knew he had what it takes. He calmly, but very confidently and firmly said, "Oh yes. I'm in it to win and I expect that I will."

No matter how much Leno continued to treat him lightly, Obama gave a calm, reasoned answer that showed his policy positions, goals as president, and expertise on issues. Leno looked flustered in his attempt to portray Obama as someone not to take seriously. Leno's wife is friends with Cheney's wife. But Leno chose to use race instead of issues.

Locally I heard people say that Obama was too young. I pointed out that Kennedy was younger. So they said that Obama lacked experience. I gave his resume in state and
federal legislatures. They objected to his prior work experience as a community organizer and law professor as insufficient "real" work experience.

They were really objecting to his color but did not want to openly say so. They knew that I knew what they meant.

Those same people had no problem voting for Trump, with no governing experience, no knowledge of how government works, and a long list of business failures and history of sexual assault and harrassment.

So, yes, racism and sexism are still active in American life and politics. Yet , we have had a black president and a woman who won the popular vote and might have gained the electoral vote without foreign interference.

[Baked Potato]

39. Thank you wnylib and StarfishSaver for that discussion

It was very interesting to me to hear your perspectives.

[StarfishSaver]

44. Yes, indeed

[wnylib]

46. '

[hangaleft]

33. 76/85?

That’s dreadful!

[jimfields33]

27. The only thing biden needs to do is take a breath before he speaks and think

Before speaking. We cannot afford a gaff anytime from convention if he gets nomination to election. Remember quail lost the election over a misspelling. Voters are fickle.

[cilla4progress]

30. I think the sensitivity to gaffes is

superficial and people need to get beyond it.

Seriously - with drumpf on the other side?

I've watch a lotta Joe - interviews, debates. He knows of what he speaks! I'll be damned to sit on the edge of my seat each time worrying about a gaffe.

It's the substance...!

[jimfields33]

34. I can take that and totally agree with you

But the media won’t.

[cilla4progress]

40. Well we need to drive them

In the right direction where and when we can!

[Bettie]

20. Men don't have to be extraordinary

they just have to be men.

That's what it comes down to. Most men will always vote for a mediocre man over the most accomplished woman.

We'll never have a woman as president because men won't vote for a woman. This is our country. This is who we are as a nation.

When Clinton ran it was "I'd be fine with a woman, but not THAT woman". They said it about Harris too, then Warren "not THAT woman".

It will always be "not THAT woman".

I think I'm done calling, canvassing, and working for anyone, ever.

I'll vote. I'll grit my teeth and vote for whichever male is the nominee, but I'm done doing anything more than that.

[jimfields33]

28. If every women would vote for a women we'd have a women president

I always see this on big brother and survivor where the women could get an alliance and go to the end, but they never do. So strange and frustrating from a viewers perspective. Works same as politics.

[zackymilly]

42. Joe's "The One". n/t

[pattyloutwo]

8. I don't think that was the takeaway

I read she got votes from women, but not white men without an education.

[Kaleva]

19. Biden and Sanders each did better with women voters then Warren

[Blaukraut]

5. Yep, contrary to outside appearances, there are still a lot of Neanderthals here in MA

We live on the border of NH, near the coast. Our area is full of the type of men described in the above article. They don't like Warren. They didn't like Deval Patrick, either. And they really hated Martha Coakley. (notice a common thread?) A lot of them have moved north, into New Hampshire though to avoid paying state taxes. (sorry, NH)

[Vivienne235729]

7. That surprised me that a progressive state like Massachusetts would have so much sexism like that

I'm sure the era of Trump made it worse.

[Kaleva]

11. Warren would easily have won the state had the women who voted for Bernie and Biden voted for her

Warren only got a quarter of the female vote in MA

[Kaleva]

9. In MA, Biden and Sanders did better with women voters then Warren did

Biden 34% of the female vote

Sanders 26% of the female vote

Warren 24% of the female vote

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/exit-polls-2020-super-tuesday-primary/

Biden did better then Warren with college graduates.

[Vivienne235729]

12. That surprises me that she would get the least amount of woman voters.

[Kaleva]

13. Which explains why she came in third

[Blaukraut]

41. She did. Most of my Warren supporting (women) friends ended up voting for Joe.

Our male friends, including my husband, who were in Liz's camp stuck with her. Sadly, there just aren't enough of them here.

[Raftergirl]

10. I'm a woman

and the thing I really don't like about Warren is that I always feel like she is lecturing me.

I don’t live in MA but my 26 yr old kid does and he voted for Joe.

But, if she was the nominee she’d get my vote

[Vivienne235729]

14. I can see that. I was telling someone that I think she is a brainy, supersmart

Got it going on woman. But I think she lacks charisma. Charisma shouldn't matter in a better world., though.

[llmart]

24. In my opinion, Biden has charisma...

but Bernie doesn't. He comes across as an angry, old white man with a chip on his shoulder. So why did he best Warren?

It comes down to we live in a country that is far behind others in how we view women. We've come a long way, baby, since I was a young woman but we have a long way to go.

[hangaleft]

36. Please

Biden has charisma?

Joe Biden?

Charisma?

[rownesheck]

31. We need lecturing.

This country is filled to the brim with dumbasses. I'm starting to think we are much dumber than we are depicted in the movie Idiocracy. And honestly, each day I feel worse and worse about the state of this country and it's citizenry.

Giant Fucking Meteor 2020!

[Raftergirl]

47. Well I don't need

to be lectured to by any politician.

I’m 63, been involved in politics actively since high school and have an undergrad degree and Masters in Political Science and a Masters in Public Policy.

In my opinion one doesn’t win elections by lecturing and/or talking down to voters. Or yelling at them, either (I’m talking to you, Bernie.)

[StarfishSaver]

45. I feel like Bernie is lecturing me - and yelling at me while he does it

But people don't seem to mind that so much coming from him. It just means he's passionate, or something.

[Raftergirl]

48. I mind it.

[Cha]

16. KR.. TY Vivienne

[Vivienne235729]

17. Thank you, Cha!

[Cha]

22. Aloha!

[samnsara]

26. i was sad about that..shes a good candidate and her state should have backed her...

[Faux pas]

29. That says

more about men than it does about her.

[Kaleva]

32. More women voted for Biden and Sanders each then for Warren in MA

[Faux pas]

35. Show me

[Kaleva]

38. Here

Scroll down to near the bottom and select "Massachusetts".

Biden 34% of the female vote

Sanders 26% of the female vote

Warren 24% of the female vote

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/exit-polls-2020-super-tuesday-primary/

Biden did better then Warren with college graduates.

[stillcool]

37. I didn't vote for her...

I love her as a Senator, but to me, with every government agency cannibalized, fixing all that is broken will require a Nancy Pelosi knowledge depth. Knowing what works where, why, and how. I just hope the state governments pick up some Democrats, because without them, nothing matters. I don't think it was a personality vote, I think it was a fear of Trump vote.

[BusyBeingBest]

43. She has the ingredients of a great candidate, but poor political instincts

and sometimes comes off too strong/scoldy/sanctimonious.