Warren's Mission: Kill The Anxiety About Her Campaign

Elizabeth Warren is the “but” candidate of the Democratic primary: For more than a year, voters have agonized over her. They like her — they love her! But, they say, they worry she can’t beat Trump: because she’s too far left, because she’s too impractical, because she doesn’t speak to white Midwesterners. Sometimes, that worry is so clear it doesn’t need to be voiced: “I love Warren, but...” voters say and then trail off, as though the reasons are obvious.

In Iowa, with the caucuses near and Warren trailing Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in most polls both nationally and in the state, Warren’s campaign has oriented itself around changing that dynamic — convincing Iowans’ heads, not just their hearts.

The campaign has reshaped its events in a way that seems aimed directly at voters’ anxieties. They are working to convince voters obsessed with beating Trump that Warren can appeal to moderates. On Friday, the campaign took the rare step of releasing a strategy memo outlining its plans beyond Iowa and the early voting states, emphasizing how much staff it has across the country and how prepared they are for a “long nomination fight.”

Campaign surrogates, like former candidate Julián Castro, have begun to pitch Warren as the “unity candidate,” arguing that she can unite the Democratic Party’s factions in a way that no other frontrunner can. On a January swing through Iowa, her campaign arranged for Warren to be introduced by former Republicans at back-to-back events. They released a list of Iowa Republicans who had said they were planning on caucusing for Warren. On Medicare for All, the issue that tripped her up last year over worries that the plan was too radical, Warren has perfected a health care pitch that sounds, at least until the end, like it was ripped from Klobuchar’s stump speech.

There is data that shows potential for Warren: She’s the most popular second-choice candidate among Iowa voters. But many of those people, the data also shows, rank her behind the other Iowa frontrunners — Biden, Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/elizabeth-warren-electability-unity-candidate