Democratic primary in the United States: Elizabeth Warren on a rising slope

Can she do it? In the United States, Elizabeth Warren shakes up the campaign of the Democratic primary for the presidential election 2020. With his program expanded and after rather successful debates, she appears today as the main rival of Joe Biden in the race to allow choose who will face Donald Trump next year.

In January, the average of the polls, calculated by The Economist, placed Elizabeth Warren at only 7% of the voting intentions. Today, it is 19%. She appears even more frequently in second place (out of 20 competitors), ahead of Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator and unhappy candidate for the 2016 primary, but still behind the indestructible Joe Biden, former vice president of Barack Obama. . One of the latest studies, published by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, even gives 25% of the voting intentions to the 70-year-old Massachusetts senator, behind Joe Biden at 31% but far ahead of Bernie Sanders at 14%.

It is of course too early to make predictions and claim that Elizabeth Warren can win this primary (which votes will run from February to June 2020 in the fifty US states), but the momentum is clearly with her. Apart from polls that are increasingly favorable, she managed to drain thousands of people at each of its meetings: 12,000 in Minnesota and 15,000 in Seattle in August, and more than 20,000 this Monday, September 16 in New York , according to figures given by his campaign team. For comparison, at the launch of his campaign in May in Philadelphia, Joe Biden had gathered only 6,000 people.

More pragmatic than Bernie Sanders

The great strength of Elizabeth Warren lies in her program. While the campaign has just begun, it is already accurate and expanded on many points. Among his main proposals are strong measures, such as a tax on the fortunes of the richest Americans, the cancellation of almost all of the huge student debt or a green investment plan of 3,000 billion dollars (2,700 billions of euros) over ten years to 100% clean energy.

Very progressive ideas, which are similar to those of his colleague Bernie Sanders. But this ex-Harvard law professor appears despite everything more pragmatic than the senator of Vermont, and therefore less marked on the left. A position that could help him attract the voters of Joe Biden, the most centrist candidate of twenty still in contention. Indeed, unlike Bernie Sanders, adept shock statements and frontal attacks against rivals, Elizabeth Warren adopts a much more consensual tone, which some blame to be too rigid or even "professorial".

During each of the three debates that have already taken place between the candidates in the primary, Elizabeth Warren has been spurred to detail his many proposals, focusing on the substance of the case, with his favorite gimmick: "I have a plan for that. "At the third debate on Monday night in Houston, Texas, she refrained from attacking Joe Biden, and did the same with Bernie Sanders. But the united front that it posted with the latter could crack with the approach of the poll, the two candidates – called the "frenemies" by the American media, mixture of "friends" (friends) and "enemies" (enemies ) – hunting on the same ground.

Biden always favorite

Even if Bernie Sanders does not appear totally dropped in the polls, some experts still believe that we are heading for a Warren-Biden duel. But from there to dream to exceed the favorite, the way is still long for the senator, nicknamed "Pocahontas" by Donald Trump for its distant Amerindian origins. Most Democratic voters want only one thing: to prevent the current US President from getting a second term, no matter the way and the candidate.

In this context, Joe Biden, more moderate than Elizabeth Warren, appears as a safer choice. Especially since the former vice president has a large base of voters in the black and Hispanic minorities, while the senator from Massachusetts is very late at this level. However, Kyle Kondik, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, wonders "if Biden's frailties, which we see regularly, do not risk in the end to undermine the advantage he currently enjoys as a candidate perceived by most as the best option against Trump, "the 76-year-old former Delaware senator, racking up blunders since the start of the campaign, coupled with doubts about his state of health.