[H]ANOVER, N.H. — On the one hand, U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both are New England transplants with hardscrabble childhoods running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination on platforms for working families and against wealthy and powerful special interests.
On the other, the Vermonter is polling second behind former Vice President Joe Biden in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire, while his Massachusetts peer is running fourth behind South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. But tell that to the overflow crowd of nearly 100 people who couldn’t get into a standing-room-only rally of 500 Warren supporters over the weekend at this town’s Hanover Inn.
“A lot of the talk is about her not getting any traction,” said a retiree from the nearby Vermont town of Thetford who was squeezed against the back wall. “This looks like traction.”
Asked for his name, the man declined — noting he supported his home state senator in his 2016 White House bid but wasn’t sure if he’d do so again.
“I can’t but be troubled by the way Bernie thinks everything is reducible to class,” the man said. “That creates real difficulties.”
And that could make a difference for Warren, who focuses on the same economic concerns as Sanders but is facing questions from pundits and the press about her so-far lower poll numbers.
“We need to rewrite the rules of this economy — inequality is going to crush us,” she told the crowd here Saturday. “I want a government that doesn’t work for the giant multinational corporations, I want one that works for our small families.”
Sanders and Warren, although 2020 competitors, are congenial. When asked to point out their differences, she replied only that she’s running her own race. But that said, the two aren’t the same. As Sanders has endured countless questions about promising but not delivering his tax returns before April 15, Warren shared hers long ago.
“We should make everyone who runs for federal office put their tax returns online,” she said to applause.
While Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, Warren labels herself a “capitalist to my bones.”
And many of her supporters appreciate she’s female.
“We turn on the news and hear predominantly about men and what they’re doing,” said one woman upon taking the microphone to ask a question.
Warren, for her part, spoke about issues not only as a candidate but also as a wife and mother.
“I look back and think how many women my age got sidelined over child care,” she said. “How many women and men today get sidelined over child care?”
Warren also has been quicker than Sanders to support a federal study of financial reparations for descendants of slavery.
“America is built on the backs of enslaved people,” she said. “Until we address that issue head-on and have a real conversation about the impact of race, not just in the past but also today, we can’t make this country the country of our best ideals.”
