Elizabeth Warren’s unapologetic campaign

I’ve always prided myself on not being a terribly jealous person, but that changed Sunday evening when my mom texted, “Elizabeth Warren called me,” with a big emoji smiley face.

I was mid-flight back from an amazing weekend away in Berlin when I saw it, and suddenly nothing I had done seemed remotely as cool as my mom talking to Sen. Warren (D-Mass.). 

That said, and in typical mom fashion, she followed with: “I mean her office.”

They called to ask her why she had donated money to Warren’s presidential campaign. She told them: “(Her) intelligence, honor, compassion, credibility.” And added, with an eye towards winning in 2020, “But please stop with the abolition of private health insurance!”

My mom is going to work for Warren just like millions of Americans have been motivated to do since she joined the race. Their hard work is paying off — a number of polls put Warren in second place behind frontrunner Joe Biden, and the momentum is clearly on her side. 

A CBS News/YouGov tracking poll of Democratic voters in early contests finds a much tighter race than expected, with Biden garnering 25 percent support and Warren with 20 percent. Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) claim the third and fourth spots with 16 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

Last week’s Economist/YouGov national poll ranked Warren at 16 percent, behind the former vice president at 25 percent. She also is in second place in the RealClear Politics average for the Iowa caucus behind Biden at 15 percent to his 24 percent, and in New Hampshire with an average 18 percent to Biden’s 24 percent. 

Things undoubtedly get worse for Warren in South Carolina, where Biden holds a 20+ point advantage, but her rise is indisputable. And it’s owed to her preparedness — she has a plan for everything — as well as little things such as checking in with supporters like my mom and holding over a hundred town halls, even in deep Donald Trump country. 

It comes as no surprise that in early states, 56 percent of Democrats said they think Warren will fight “a great deal” for people like them. For comparative purposes, only 38 percent say the same about Biden. 

The mainstream argument is that Warren’s ascension comes at the expense of Sanders, an argument that on the surface makes sense. As the most prominent far-left progressives, both running campaigns against the idea of incrementalism in every policy area, you’d think they share a base. They’re also the same demographic: white baby boomers.

But the data reveal that Warren isn’t causing Sanders’s drop — they don’t actually share the same voters. A recent Morning Consult poll found that among voters whose first choice is Sanders, 31 percent said their second choice is Biden, followed by Warren (23 percent). In contrast, for first-choice Warren voters, 33 percent selected Harris as their second choice and 20 percent picked Sanders as their backup. 

Warren and Harris are the candidates competing for the same voters. Nearly 30 percent of Harris voters selected Warren as their second choice. 

It follows that the Sanders v. Warren rivalry is a media concoction, like so many election plot lines. Sanders appeals to lower-income, less-educated Americans and Warren is firmly in the college-educated lane. Sanders does better with men; women prefer Warren. 

Warren has a lot of work to do with the African American community — a key, if not the key, voting bloc for Democrats — and she is taking that challenge head-on by focusing on racial justice and impressing black voters at forums such as She the People. It’s doubtful that she’ll make up the ground Biden, Harris and even Sanders have with black voters, but she earns an A for effort. 

Another potential boon for Warren is fast approaching with next week’s debates. While she was the only top-polling candidate on the stage at the NBC debates, Warren and Sanders will be on stage together for the first night of the CNN debates — an opportunity for folks with similar policy preferences to see them side by side. And though their core bases aren’t the same, Warren could pick off a chunk of Sanders voters after the debate. The juxtaposition will highlight her depth and accomplishments, an area that Sanders struggles with when pushed. 

We inevitably will find out how diehard Sanders supporters really are with another viable progressive candidate, a reality hundreds of thousands of voters felt they didn’t have in 2016. 

As a moderate Democrat, I remain concerned about nominating Warren. Her policies are not built for a general election with millions of independents and moderate Republican voters up for grabs. That said, I’ve got Warren fever, too. Her campaign is just so unapologetic you can’t help but get into it. 

Jessica Tarlov is head of research at Bustle Digital Group and a Fox News contributor. She earned her Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in political science. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaTarlov.