In spite of her impressive intellect and humble background, Elizabeth Warren is Trump’s dream opponent, because she feeds into every identity narrative that he wants to emphasize. An elderly, sharp-tongued woman who loves wonks, taught at Harvard, and claimed to have American Indian ancestry? For Trump, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
His other line of attack, of course, will be socialism. Warren isn’t actually a democratic socialist, but it would be easy to make her wealth tax, innumerable social programs, and new government regulations on business look like a looming threat to your job and your 401(k). Put this information in enough commercials, and the majority of American voters will come to believe it.
There is a reason that Warren’s poll numbers against Trump are significantly worse than Biden’s or Bernie’s. In the real world, I just don’t think she would have much of a chance to beat him, barring a national calamity between now and November.