538: What's Behind Elizabeth Warren's Rise In The Polls?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has come a long way in the polls since the early days of her 2020 presidential campaign. Back in April, she was polling in the mid single digits nationally, but she now leads a number of national and early-state polls. And based on polls from September and August, Warren has expanded her support in a few overlapping directions — making inroads with groups and categories of voters she was previously struggling with. The result is that she is now positioned as the leading alternative to former Vice President Joe Biden. Here’s a look at where Warren has made inroads, so far:

Warren is appealing to more moderate voters now, too
Along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, Warren has long been a favorite among more liberal voters. And since June, she’s actually been the top choice among very liberal voters, according to polling from Quinnipiac University. Now, however, there’s evidence she’s picking up support from more moderate voters, too. In the latest Quinnipiac national survey, Warren not only inched ahead of Biden in overall support from Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents, 27 percent to 25 percent, but she also beat him for the first time in Quinnipiac’s polling among somewhat liberal voters, capturing 30 percent of that group to Biden’s 19 percent. (She was also the clear second choice among moderate or conservative voters, although Biden still had a 10-point lead there.)

Earlier in September, I wrote that it was good for Warren that she was doing so well among very liberal voters, but that it probably wasn’t enough to carve out a path to the nomination as the Democratic Party is roughly evenly split between liberals and moderates. But now, it seems as if Warren’s appeal is broadening beyond her ideological base of very liberal supporters.

Quinnipiac isn’t the only pollster who found this, either. Monmouth University’s September national survey found that Warren led with 37 percent of the vote from liberal voters and was also in second place among moderate or conservative respondents with 20 percent support — 10 points behind Biden’s 30 percent. This marked an uptick of 4 percentage points among these moderate or conservative voters since Monmouth’s August poll. Additionally, the latest YouGov/Economist national poll pegged Warren as the first choice for 15 percent of moderates — some distance behind Biden’s 30 percent, though still in second place. But this was still about twice the level of Warren’s support among moderates in late August.