A Case for Harvard’s Own: Elizabeth Warren

The 2020 Democratic candidate must have the temperament and platform that motivates every Democrat — not to mention their independent father — out to the polls. That candidate is Elizabeth Warren — and not just because she is an emerita professor at Harvard Law School.

Two overarching questions face Democrats right now. The first question asks, “Will Democrats win 2020 by appealing to the median voter, or will they win by mobilizing the Progressive flank?” And the second question asks, “Is Trump an aberration, or is he a symptom of the nation’s deeper ailments?”

I am not the first to raise these questions — just go over to CGIS and you’ll hear them debated ad nauseum. But as Super Tuesday approaches and many Harvardians gear up to vote in Massachusetts or mail ballots home, people outside the political punditry must fiercely interrogate these questions themselves. After all, how we answer them matters for how we answer the bigger question of who is best positioned to beat Donald Trump in November.

If Democrats believe that galvanizing the progressive vote will carry them to victory in 2020 and that Trump is symptomatic of deeper issues, then the logical conclusion is to nominate Bernie Sanders. Conversely, if Democrats believe that victory rests with the median voter and that Trump was an aberration, then the logical conclusion is to put forward Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, or Amy Klobuchar— who can appeal to middle-of-the-road America.

The answers to these two questions, however, are not so black and white. Looking at 2016 voting, for instance, it is noteworthy that 12 percent of Sanders's primary voters ultimately voted for Trump, which should be a cautionary tale about nominating a candidate with lackluster progressive credentials. Still another 12 percent of Republican primary voters (particularly supporters of John Kasich and Marco Rubio) cast their ballot for Hillary Clinton, indicating that the median voter is not “dead” as many progressives decry. It would therefore be dangerous to put forward either a progressive who risks alienating the median voter or a moderate who can’t keep progressives in the fold.

Let’s instead nominate a candidate positioned to straddle the intraparty rift; who promises to usher in big, structural change while not going so far as to abandon America’s core systems; who dreams big and fights hard; who refuses to hold her punches. Let’s nominate Senator Elizabeth Warren.

When it comes to envisioning a more equitable America, Warren is unparalleled. Her dizzyingly comprehensive agenda, genuine sensitivity to issues of race, gender, and identity, and expansive interpretation of executive power qualify her as the best standard-bearer for the progressive cause, not Bernie.

Unlike Sanders, Warren has spent the past 40 years studying the factors exacerbating inequality and degrading American mobility. Unlike Sanders, Warren has the record of creating a highly effective federal agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has returned $12.4 billion back to American households cheated by financial companies. And unlike Sanders, Warren has actually fulfilled her Senatorial duty and legislated — the primary sponsor on nine Senate bills, compared to Sanders’s three, and since 2013, a co-sponsor on 50 laws, compared to Sanders’s 17 over the same period. Warren is therefore the more qualified representative of the progressive cause, eager to pick up the fragmented pieces of the executive branch and better people’s lives through the subtle yet seismic push-and-pull of regulatory levers.

Warren would also handily maintain moderate’s support.

First, Warren’s establishment support — proxied by endorsements — is surpassed only by Biden and Bloomberg, according to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis. And I would argue that merely analyzing Warren’s endorsements from the likes of Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Julian Castro, Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) actually under-estimate her cache. After all, she was also a professor at Harvard Law School, where she taught current members of Congress, including Katie Porter (D-Calif.), and Kennedy, both of whom formally endorsed her, and she maintains strong ties to the Obama administration from her days building the CFPB and cleaning up after the Global Financial Crisis.

Second, the mantelpieces for Warren’s campaign — anti-corruption, reviving the American Dream for all, education, and labor rights — are broadly popular among the American electorate, which will motivate Moderates to embrace her platform given their belief in victory through broad appeal. In turn, down-ballot Democrats will be able to ride Warren’s coattails with a laser-focus on not-so-sexy but oh-so-important policies.

Finally, Warren elevates reform over revolution, channeling the legal and political traditions of Louis Brandeis, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, and Lyndon B. Johnson to inform her plans for a more equitable and just America. These three figures are demigods in Democratic lore, and Warren gives Democrats the chance to revive some of that transformational glory.

Up until this point, the electability conversation has focused too much on individual candidates and too little on party unity. So, before we cast the last ballot, let’s be straight with ourselves: Neither moderates nor progressives will win without each other, and neither moderates nor progressives can govern alone. There is only one candidate positioned to unify the party. That candidate is Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Warren is ready to roll up the sleeves of her Nina McLemore blazer and fight like the dickens. Her persistence, her intellect, and her fierceness is Trump’s worst nightmare. And it is the Democrats’ best shot.

Michael G. Montella '21 is a Government concentrator with an Economics secondary living in Eliot House.