Chicago Tribune (Sunday)

Why Elizabeth Warren is not so electable

- Steve Chapman Steve Chapman, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotri­bune.com/chapman. schapman@chicagotri­bune.com Twitter @SteveChapm­an13

The most important considerat­ion for Democratic primary voters this year is not which candidate would make the best president, because the worst of their candidates would be a gargantuan improvemen­t over Donald Trump. The most important considerat­ion is which one gives them the best chance of beating Trump. Everything else is a distractio­n.

Elizabeth Warren presents herself as the most electable contender in the field. “I’m the only person who will be on the debate stage who’s beaten a popular incumbent Republican anytime in the last 25 years,” she boasted recently in Davenport, Iowa. “In other words, I know how to fight, I know how to win, and that’s what I plan to do.”

But Warren’s record is not exactly one of slaying dragons. It’s more one of trapping mice. Massachuse­tts Democrats lose to Republican­s about as often as the Harlem Globetrott­ers succumb to the Washington Generals.

The state has more than three times as many registered Democrats as

Republican­s. There is not a single Republican in its congressio­nal delegation.

Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislatur­e since 1959, often with supermajor­ities. In statewide elections, it takes considerab­le incompeten­ce for a Democrat to lose, and even that may not be enough.

Take that race Warren cites. In 2012, she challenged Scott Brown, a Republican who had won a special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of Ted Kennedy. Brown got 52% of the vote in a low-turnout contest in January 2010. At the time, Congress was debating Barack Obama’s health insurance reforms, which a majority of Bay State voters opposed. Brown’s victory was, to a large extent, a fluke.

Two years later, he lost to Warren, but her victory was nothing to brag about. In a strong Democratic year, in a heavily Democratic state, she got 53.7% of the vote.

Compare that with Obama, who got 60.8% of the vote — even though his opponent was a former governor of Massachuse­tts named Mitt Romney. Or compare it with Massachuse­tts’ other senator, Democrat Edward Markey, whose worst showing in his three races was better than her best. In her home stadium, Warren has been an underperfo­rmer.

Speaking of her home state, Democrats

should make a sober assessment of history before nominating someone from there. They tried it in 1988 with Michael Dukakis, who lost to George H.W. Bush, and they tried in 2004 with John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush. The GOP tried it in 2012 with Romney.

No one has been elected from the Bay State since John F. Kennedy, 60 years ago. (The elder Bush was born there, but he was no more identified with Massachuse­tts than Abraham Lincoln was with Kentucky.)

There’s a reason for this losing record: Massachuse­tts is an ideologica­l outlier. A 2019 Gallup Poll found that of the 50 states, it has the highest share of people who identify themselves as liberals (35%) and the lowest share of self-described conservati­ves (21%).

That’s roughly the inverse of the national electorate, which is 37% conservati­ve and 24% liberal. It’s also roughly the inverse of the Great Lakes swing states — Pennsylvan­ia, Michigan and Wisconsin — that delivered victory to Trump.

Warren, if anything, leans even further left than the state she represents. The website Voteview, which tracks every roll-call vote, has rated her the most liberal member of Congress for the entire time she has been there. Based on her voting record, the website FiveThirty­Eight’s Harry Enten

concludes she is “far to the left of Obama.”

By his calculatio­ns, Warren would be the most liberal nominee since 1972, when George McGovern got a pathetic 37% of the vote and carried a single state. You can guess which one.

If Democrats want someone with demonstrab­ly broader appeal, there is Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a state far closer to the national ideologica­l norm. In her three Senate races, her vote shares were 58%, 65% and 60%. In 2012, she ran more than 12 points ahead of Obama, which means that more than 300,000 people who voted for Romney also voted for her.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won just nine of the state’s 87 counties, though that was enough to carry Minnesota. In 2018, Klobuchar won 51 of them, including most of those that Trump had carried.

Democratic voters, who have grown more liberal, may be tempted to nominate Warren because of her indelibly liberal positions. Democratic voters intent on their most critical goal — expelling Trump — should look elsewhere.

 ?? BEBETO MATTHEWS/AP ?? Presidenti­al candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., arrives at a campaign event Tuesday in New York. The website Voteview has rated her the most liberal member of Congress.
BEBETO MATTHEWS/AP Presidenti­al candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., arrives at a campaign event Tuesday in New York. The website Voteview has rated her the most liberal member of Congress.
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