I’m going to make three arguments: that Elizabeth Warren is Bernie Sanders’s ally in ideology, that Elizabeth Warren has been a good Bernie Sanders ally in practice, and that Bernie Sanders may very well need this alliance in order to win. Each time, I’ll consider and respond to possible objections to my points. If you read just one of these three arguments, skip to the third; it’s the one I think that fewest people realize.
Elizabeth Warren is Bernie Sanders’s ally in ideology
This should almost go without saying. What’s Bernie Sanders’s signature policy proposal? Medicare for all. Who is the only other candidate still in the race who supports Medicare for all? Elizabeth Warren. And it works the other way, too: Warren’s signature policy proposal is a wealth tax, Sanders is the only other one who has a similar proposal. You can go down the list of key plans — climate change, racial justice, campaign finance, etc. — and it’s clear they’re closer to each other than to the other candidates in this race, and in many cases they’ve both led the way for the rest of the field.
Possible objections:
- “Is Warren really sincere about M4A?” The answer is, of course she is. There is a meaningful distinction between their positions — he’s clearly more “M4A or bust”, while she’s shown more willingness to be flexible — but it is utterly clear that despite these tactical differences they both share similar goals and would both consider signing an M4A bill as one of their greatest achievements.
Elizabeth Warren has been a good Bernie Sanders ally in practice
Warren and Sanders have worked together closely in the Senate. There are 85 bills on which one of them is the sponsor and the other is a co-sponsor; only two other Senators have more overlap with Warren during the time she’s been in the Senate. (Warren is lower than that on the list of Bernie’s cosponsors, but I think that’s mostly because she’s been in the Senate for less time.) And in the campaign, the “non-aggression” pact between the two of them may have been a bit strained at times, but overall it has held; unlike many of the other candidates, they have refrained from directly criticizing each other’s plans.
Possible objections:
- “Yeah right; Warren is that 🐍 who attacked Bernie by saying women can’t win. She’s obviously trying to trip him up and steal the nomination.” Answer: the public doesn’t know who leaked that story in January 2020. It seems that the media was aware of that story off the record since early 2019. So there are three possibilities: either the media decided to sit on the story then put it out when they did, or Warren herself made that call, or it was some other hearsay witness. I believe that assuming that it was a strategic choice by Warren, when it demonstrably and predictably hasn’t actually helped her campaign, is unfair. I find it far more likely that it was a third party. And if even it was a conspiracy of people out to get Bernie, isn’t it possible that the media deliberately leaked the story in order to sabotage them both?
Bernie Sanders may very well NEED Elizabeth Warren in order to win
Here’s the current Democratic Primary forecast from fivethirtyeight.com. The most likely outcome is that nobody gets a majority of pledged delegates. Second-most-likely is a Sanders majority. The combined chance of a majority for Biden, Bloomberg, or Buttigieg is 25%; and Warren is the least-likely viable candidate, with just 2% chance of a majority. Note that there is even less of a chance that some candidate will have a majority of the popular vote, than that they will have a majority of pledged delegates.
What would “no majority” mean? Very likely, Sanders would have a plurality of the pledged delegates, but he would need support from at least one other candidates’ delegates, and/or from superdelegates, to actually get the nomination.
And of all the candidates, Warren is the most likely to advise her delegates to support Sanders, and the most likely to have delegates who are willing to do so. By far.
If we’re headed for a no-majority outcome, the most important question in each state’s primary isn’t “who won?” (that is, “which candidate got a plurality?”), but “who reached the 15% threshold?”. If a candidate gets 15.1% of the vote, they get at least 15.1% of the delegates from that state; if they get 14.9%, they get zero delegates, and all of their voters’ voting power is effectively wasted, transferred to the candidates that did pass the threshold.
Elizabeth Warren is a lot closer to missing or passing that threshold in a lot more states than Bernie Sanders is. This means that, paradoxically, in many states, a vote for Warren may well do more to help Sanders get elected than a vote for Sanders himself. Now, I’m not actually suggesting that somebody who clearly prefers Sanders should vote strategically for Warren; I think that generally, it’s best if people vote for the viable candidate they honestly like the best. But if you honestly see Sanders vs. Warren as a toss-up, there’s no question that right now it’s more strategic to support Warren, even though it’s more likely that Sanders will win.
(Note I say “support”, as in campaign for and answer polls for. If you really want to be maximally strategic, it might arguably make sense to check polls at the last minute, and vote for Sanders if you think Warren definitely *won’t* make the 15% threshold in your state. But I wouldn’t advise making your vote subject to polls at that level; it’s opening yourself up to manipulation by people who do not have your best interests at heart.)
Consider, for instance, the following two scenarios in California:
- A. Bernie 33, Warren 12: Bernie gets >155/415 delegates, Warren 0, others <260
- B. Bernie 30, Warren 15: Bernie gets >125/415 (still a media "win"), Warren >62, others <228.
There are at least 32 more progressive delegates in scenario B , with the same total progressive votes. Better for Bernie.
Possible objections to this line of logic:
- “If Sanders gets a plurality, he wins even without Warren. In other words, the other candidates wouldn’t dare rob the nomination from him in that circumstance.” Answer: that may be right. But are you feeling lucky? Because there’s no denying that, of all the other candidates, the one who’s most likely to ask their delegates to support Sanders if he gets a plurality, is Warren.
- “This is all just biased, motivated reasoning. You just want Warren to win.” Of course I want Warren to win. And I think that with a better voting method, one that wasn’t dominated by the effects of vote-splitting and arbitrary thresholds, Warren would have and would have had a much better chance of winning. But I’ve spent a good part of my life studying voting methods and voting strategy, and I believe that the analysis in this diary is rock solid; not just a product of bias. I honestly, without reservations, think that Warren’s chances of being nominated are right now clearly below 1 in 6, while the chance that Warren acts as a kingmaker for Sanders are clearly above that. And if Sanders does get a plurality, I think that Warren absolutely should and probably would throw her support behind him.
So say I’m right. What should people do about it?
I would not actually advise Sanders supporters to vote for Warren in some bank-shot attempt to strategically help Sanders. That’s just too complicated. But I certainly have seen purported Sanders supporters attacking Warren. I suspect some of those purported supporters are Russian trolls, but some aren’t. So, here’s my simple advice:
If you support Sanders, don’t attack Warren.
If you support Warren, don’t switch to Sanders for tactical reasons.
If you support both Warren and Sanders, vote for Warren (unless she’s polling horribly in your state; say, 5% or below).