Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield took a swing at the perceived vulnerabilities of one of his 2020 competitors, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Bedingfield responded to a recent Monmouth University poll — which showed Biden barely trailing Warren for the first time since he declared his candidacy — by pointedly telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that “no Democrat is going to win the nomination for president without African-American support. Nor should they.” Warren has consistently polled much lower than Biden among African Americans.
WATCH:
Bedingfield began by noting that the Monmouth poll was so far an outlier and that, overall, polls still show Biden with a healthy lead over his fellow Democratic contenders. “The polls show he’s still in the lead,” she said. “You mentioned the Morning Consult poll out this morning showing him at 33% which is in line with the Real Clear Politics average, which is 28%. We’re talking polls, he’s leading in the polls to be clear. The most important thing is the reason why, which is not that voters know his name but that they know him. They know his character.”
Mitchell noted that newcomer Andrew Yang was tied with Biden in terms of support from younger voters, and Bedingfield pivoted to tout the former vice president’s strong support for the African American community. (RELATED: Rolling Stone Writer Says Warren Can’t Take Black Voters For Granted — Unless She Wins The Primary)
“You’re raising an interesting point about where candidate support comes from. I think one important thing about Joe Biden is he has tremendous support in the African-American community. I think, you know, when we talk about electability versus enthusiasm, you know, which is a favorite narrative of the press these days, you know, enthusiasm is not just about who excites Progressive whites,” Bedingfield said. “It’s also about who can build a diverse coalition. No Democrat is going to win the nomination for President of the United States without African-American support. Nor should they. And Joe Biden has tremendous respect and relationship with the African-American community that I think is — really other leading candidates in this race have yet to prove that relationship. So I think as we’re talking about building a coalition, that’s a really important point about voter enthusiasm and about enthusiasm in the democratic electorate.”
Biden camp hitting Warren’s biggest vulnerability https://t.co/GT5LN8ANuH
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) August 27, 2019
Senator Warren, who led Biden by just one point in the Monmouth poll, showed single-digit support from African Americans.