Dying Enthusiasm? Warren Has To Push 'Environmental Justice' in Front of Sparse Crowd
South Carolina is greeting Democratic presidential contender Sen. Elizabeth Warren with a shrug, if attendance at one recent event is a barometer of her popularity.
A reporter for Bloomberg News noted the lack of turnout for Warren at an event Saturday in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
“Elizabeth Warren takes the stage at an Environmental Justice forum in South Carolina before a sparse audience. Tom Steyer spoke before her; numerous rivals skipped it,” Bloomberg News journalist Sahil Kapur tweeted.
(Click on the image on the right to note the number of empty seats.)
ORANGEBURG — Elizabeth Warren takes the stage at an Environmental Justice forum in South Carolina before a sparse audience. Tom Steyer spoke before her; numerous rivals skipped it. pic.twitter.com/CJnoCuNheF
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 9, 2019
Kapur also tweeted an image that made it seem that during his appearance at the event, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey also failed to attract many attendees.
Cory Booker is up, opening with a joke about how 2020 isn’t the year of the election, it’s the number of people running in the Democratic primary. pic.twitter.com/bfwZBeJZI7
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 9, 2019
The RealClearPolitics average of polls conducted in South Carolina shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a 19.5 percentage point lead over Warren, 35 percent to 15.5 percent. Booker is a distant seventh at 3.5 percent support.
Earlier this fall, Warren supporters said it was vital for the Massachusetts senator to appear often in the state before its Feb. 29 primary.
“I know that we live in a high-tech society, but in South Carolina we are a high-touch state,” Wendy Brawley, a state representative and Warren supporter, said, according to The Boston Globe. “It really does resonate with people when they have an opportunity to hear her.”
South Carolina gave the fledgling candidacy of former President Barack Obama a boost in 2008, but what took place then might not happen in 2020, one commentator said.
“She’s not Barack Obama and she’s not black and the urgency of the moment is totally different than it was in 2008,” Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist, told The Globe. “I’m not sure that her message at this point has tickled the ears of everyone in this party.”
Seawright said Biden has the edge in South Carolina.
“Unless there’s some sort of crack in the political foundation that Joe Biden has with African-American voters, I think that it would be tough to win South Carolina,” he said.
During the environmental justice forum, Warren said that it was wrong of the Democratic Party not to hold an official debate solely dedicated to the issue of climate change, according to the U.K. Daily Mail. (CNN did host a town hall event devoted to the topic.)
As part of her bevy of plans for her presidency, Warren has released a climate change plan in which she pledges that the United States would have 100 percent clean energy.
“By 2028, we’ll attain 100% zero-carbon pollution for all new commercial and residential buildings. By 2030, we’ll reach 100% zero emissions for all new light-duty passenger vehicles, medium-duty trucks, and all buses. And by 2035, we will achieve 100% clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy in electricity generation,” the plan claims.
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