Has Elizabeth Warren blown it? With barely two months left until Democrats begin voting for their presidential candidate, the far-left senator is finding that voters are baulking at her big-spending agenda.
After being the darling of the polls for much of this year, the 70-year-old Warren is finding that her biggest proposal — a sweeping Medicare for all plan — is becoming an albatross around her neck.
Moderate Democrats are increasingly speaking out against her $US20.5 trillion ($30.2 trillion) plan, accusing her of overestimating the desire among voters for sweeping change.
They warn that her Medicare-for-all plan would not only deliver Donald Trump a second term in office but could also cost Democrats their majority in the house.
A series of recent polls show that the Massachusetts senator’s rise has not only stalled but is now slipping fast with moderate candidates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg benefiting most from the liberal-backlash.
Warren’s plan, which would abolish private health insurance and expand Medicare to provide universal health insurance, has been indirectly criticised this month by Democrat party elders Barack Obama and house Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I’m not a big fan of Medicare for all,’’ Pelosi says.
Obama was widely seen to have the Medicare-for-all plan in mind when he said recently of Democrats, “even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision, we also have to be rooted in reality. The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.’’
Warren’s fellow Democrat presidential frontrunners Biden, Buttigieg and even Bernie Sanders — who proposes a similar scheme — have criticised her central claim that she could introduce Medicare for all without raising taxes for middle-class Americans.
Moderate candidates including Biden, Buttigieg and senator Amy Klobuchar have called for an expansion of the existing Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, rather than a completely new health system.
Other prominent party members, including Ohio senator Sherrod Brown and Alabama senator Doug Jones have warned that such a policy would alienate moderate Democrat voters and congress members.
“If a Democrat is elected president, that Democrat is going to have to talk — not only to reach across the aisle to Republicans to get things done — they’re going those to have to also talk to Democrats like me who are more moderate,” Jones said.
In the face of growing scrutiny about the practicality of her big-spending, high-taxing agenda, especially her healthcare plan, Warren took a small step backwards this month.
With polls saying many Americans do not want to get thrown off their private health insurance, she announced a phase-in scheme which means she would not seek a full Medicare-for-all plan until her third year in office.
But this has failed to stem her fall in the polls.
A Quinnipiac University poll this week saw Warren’s support among Democratic voterscut by half over the past month from 28 per cent to 14 per cent.
This was behind Biden, who remained the clear leader at 24 per cent, following by the fast-rising Buttigieg on 16 per cent and Sanders on 13 per cent.
With 18 contenders still in the Democrat race, it is fluid enough and early enough for Warren to make a comeback, but it is clear that there are limits to what the moderate wing of the party will tolerate when it comes to the ambitious left-wing agenda of Warren and Sanders.
To win the White House from Trump, Democrats will need to win over the support of those traditionally moderate Democrat voters, especially in the Midwest, who switched to him in 2016.
Many have questioned whether these moderate voters will embrace the more extreme policy positions of Warren and Sanders.
Healthcare policies can make of break candidates with polls consistently showing that healthcare is the biggest issue for Democrat voters.
The first Democrat caucus is in Iowa on February 3.
Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia
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