The emergence of Elizabeth Warren as a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination has been the story of the 2020 primary. Warren has steadily climbed in the polls, the only Democrat who is assembling a broad coalition voters and growing her support, an obvious indicator of future success. She has parried attacks from her rivals and largely avoided tough questions from the press. Her golden retriever has more Twitter followers than Joe Sestak, who is an actual presidential candidate. Since the beginning of the cycle, Warren has been rewarded for her bold positions and the simple fact that she has a clear point of view that allows her to be on offense every day. No other Democratic campaign can say the same.
But what’s remarkable about Warren’s rise, and her durability, is that it’s coming in the face of considerable headwinds blowing within the Democratic electorate. According to new findings from the progressive research firm Avalanche on the subject of “electability,” Democrats are haunted by the state of the country under Donald Trump and deeply worried about their ability to beat him next year with a woman on top of the ticket. Avalanche found that 53% of likely Democratic primary voters say it is “Harder” or “Much Harder” for a female candidate to defeat Trump. But in spite of those worries, Warren is also now perceived as more electable than she was in June, when Avalanche last conducted a survey on electability.
“There is persistent belief that gender is a barrier to electability, even though people are choosing Warren,” said Michiah Prull, the CEO of Avalanche. “Gender being a barrier is a view held as much by Warren supporters as anyone else. But what we are really seeing in Warren’s rise is that people recognize that gender is a challenge, but people also think she is up for it, and that she can overcome this barrier. Democrats are worried about winning. And at the same time you have a bunch of people saying, ‘Let’s support a bold female candidate with bold progressive ideas, someone who presents optimistic views in the face of a dark view of the country.’”
Avalanche surveys operate like focus groups at scale, using a language processing system that analyzes written responses to open-ended “listening” questions to extract more depth and texture about the campaign than typical polling. Using a sample of 1,041 registered Democratic voters, Avalanche tested a typical “horse race” question about who the respondent would support if the primary election were today, and then compared those results to a “magic wand” question: Who would you pick in a dream world, without any worries about electability?
Since June, Warren has climbed 13 points in Avalanche’s traditional horse race measure, but also 11 points in the magic wand question—making gains on both vote choice while also closing her electability gap. Warren leads in both the traditional horse race question (29%) and as the preferred nominee when electability is factored out (32%). Her closet rival, Joe Biden, was the choice of 27% of voters on the horse race question, but only 16% of “magic wand” responses, suggesting Democrats aren’t in love with Biden but favoring him because they think he can win.
Warren’s ascent is coming despite nagging worries among Democrats about electability and gender. In the survey, among the segment of respondents who selected a man for the horse race, but shifted to a female candidate when given a magic wand, 78% reported believing it is “Harder” or “Much Harder” for a female candidate to defeat Trump. Predictably, among these Democrats, almost no respondents cited any kind of personal bias or sexism. Instead, 62% reported believing that others are much less or less likely to vote for a female candidate. “Above all, the belief that women are hard to elect is most closely tied to how voters perceive their fellow citizens,” Avalanche wrote in a memo about their findings. As in June, when Avalanche first conducted an electability survey, women were more likely than men to cite gender as a concern in the general election.