What Went Down At The January Democratic Debate

Warren knew she was going to get this question about whether a woman can get elected president. She chose to use it to focus on the candidates’ electoral records, noting that the men on the stage have lost 10 elections combined and that the two women are undefeated. However, I’m not sure that’s a strong argument for Warren, who underperformed Massachusetts’ partisan baseline in both of her two elections.

Just a lot of weirdness in that exchange, in how the moderator’s question to Warren presumed that Sanders wasn’t being factual. I can see Sanders folks being pretty annoyed with that, and rightly so.

I think what’s interesting about this Sanders-Warren tiff over whether or not Sanders told her he didn’t think a woman could win is that … a lot of American voters think just that! This election is certainly different from 2016 — a 2016 hangover, in some sense — in that voters do seem to have a more contracted idea of the possible, and specifically about whether a woman can be president.