Elizabeth Warren Takes Swing At Bernie Sanders, Pitching Herself As ‘Unity’ Candidate
With the Iowa caucuses fast-approaching, Democratic presidential candidates are making a final pitch to voters, hammering away on the core messages of their campaigns. During a campaign event on Saturday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts did just that, while taking a swing at Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Per The Washington Examiner, Warren’s closing argument appears to be about “unity.” The Massachusetts Democrat is pitching herself as a candidate capable of not only winning the primary, but also uniting the Democratic Party and defeating President Donald Trump in November.
“I’ve been building a campaign from the beginning that’s not a campaign that’s narrow,” Warren said, before taking a jab at Sanders.
“Not a campaign that says, ‘It’s us and nobody else. It’s a campaign that says, ‘Come on in,’ because we are in this fight together. This fight is our fight.”
Sanders’ campaign slogan, as the publication notes, is “Not me, us,” so Warren’s remarks are being interpreted as a subtle attack on the Vermont senator and his movement.
Earlier in the primary, Warren and Sanders largely refrained from attacking each other, forming a progressive alliance against more moderate candidates. That changed earlier this month, after Warren claimed that Sanders told her during a private meeting in 2018 that a woman cannot win the presidency, which he has vehemently denied.
Once a leading candidate, Warren has plunged in the polls, with Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden rising to the top. The Massachusetts senator’s messaging has changed accordingly, and she appears to have switched from discussing her various “plans” and talking about “structural change” to centering her message on the suggestion that she is the only candidate capable of uniting all wings of the Democratic Party.
On Saturday, while discussing unity, Warren pointed out that staffers of failed Democratic candidates — Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand — have joined her campaign, stressing the importance of coming together to defeat Trump.
“We’re down to the final strokes here but understand: We will, we must come together as a party and beat Donald Trump,” she told the crowd.
Scooplet: Warren debuts 3 news ads in late electability push (2 in IA, 1 in NH). Ads in thread
“We can’t afford a fractured party in 2020” one ad begins
“In 2016, I caucused for Hillary” says Bridget
“I was for Bernie” says Antonio
“In 2020, the person that can unite the party… pic.twitter.com/YPJxxsQOoA— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) January 31, 2020
In Iowa and elsewhere, Warren is trailing Biden and Sanders. In the Hawkeye state, the Massachusetts Democrat is polling at 14.6 percent, behind Biden at 20.2 percent, and Sanders, who is topping the polls with 23.8 percent of the vote.
With the primary seemingly becoming a two-way race, the former vice president and the Vermont senator have spent the past couple of weeks focused on each other, contrasting records and sparring over policy disagreements.
