Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is hemorrhaging support as Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg are seeing their fortunes rise in the polls.
In the latest poll from Quinnipiac, Warren’s support has been halved from 28% to 14% from October. Support for Biden inched up three percentage points, while Buttigieg added six. Warren’s further-left male counterpart Bernie Sanders also lost support.
The changes from October to November among the leading contenders were as follows:
- Biden: 24% (+3)
- Buttigieg: 16% (+6)
- Warren: 14% (-14)
- Sanders: 13% (-2)
As the National Review’s John McCormack wrote explaining the change:
The last Quinnipiac poll was conducted after Pete Buttigieg attacked Warren over Medicare for All at the October Democratic debate but before Warren released her plan to raise taxes by $20 trillion to pay for the $30-$40 trillion program.
Quinnipiac finds that Medicare for All has become more unpopular as more Americans understand what it means: “Medicare for All has grown increasingly unpopular among all American voters, as 36 percent say it is a good idea and 52 percent say it is a bad idea. In a March 26, 2019 poll, 43 percent said good idea, while 45 percent said bad idea. The highest support came in an August 3, 2017 poll when voters said it was a good idea 51 – 38 percent.” While Warren certainly isn’t out of the running yet, she could very well become the second Democratic candidate to become undone by the issue. Kamala Harris’s waffling on Medicare for All played a large part in her campaign’s downfall.
Americans are waking up to just how expensive what Warren and company are proposing is. Just so you have a frame of reference, to finance “only” $30 trillion over the next decade in new spending would require either:
- A 32 percent payroll tax
- A 25 percent income surtax
- A 42 percent value-added tax (VAT)
- A mandatory public premium averaging $7,500 per capita – the equivalent of $12,000 per individual not otherwise on public insurance
- More than doubling all individual and corporate income tax rates
- An 80 percent reduction in non-health federal spending, or
- A 108 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increase in the national debt
Unsurprisingly, the “free” programs that Democrats commonly propose become substantially less popular once voters realize there is in-fact a price tag attached.
