"She's Number One": Elizabeth Warren Is Having A Moment In South Carolina

[bluewater]

Progressive voters in South Carolina are starting to see Elizabeth Warren as a reasonable alternative to Bernie Sanders, according to polls and interviews with voters in the critical early primary state.

On Friday, at Rep. Jim Clyburn’s annual Fish Fry, all 22 presidential candidates stood on stage wearing matching blue tee-shirts provided by their host. But voters have started to see Warren as being able to differentiate herself from the pack.

“She’s the one who has plans, she’s the one who can articulate her vision for the future. She has more substance than anybody else,” Harriett Harris, a voter volunteering for Warren’s campaign at the South Carolina Democratic convention, told BuzzFeed News.
The admiration for Warren was apparent as she walked onto the stage Friday to some of the loudest cheers for any candidate. She launched into familiar lines from her stump speech about fighting for the working class, dreaming big, and taking on corporations. Before the fish fry, her supporters gathered in the parking lot of the South Carolina Children’s Museum could be heard chanting “this is what a Warren stan looks like!” As she told the audience that she and Clyburn had recently introduced legislation to cancel student loan debt, a man in line for the free drinks yelled “I love you Liz!” back at the senator.

For some progressive voters like William Lawrence, the South Carolina Democratic Party’s veteran caucus chair, who worked for Sanders’ 2016 campaign in South Carolina, their support has switched to Warren.
“She is number one,” Lawrence said pointing to Warren’s similar progressive positions that drew him to Sanders’ campaign and pointed to Sanders’ past positions on gun control as what helped him make the switch.

“Elizabeth is first and Bernie is second. They haven’t wavered and they’ve changed our party across the entire country. Free college, living wages, free healthcare? Democrats wouldn’t touch that before but now those are the common positions in our party.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryancbrooks/elizabeth-warren-south-carolina-2020-election