An identity voter chooses someone who reminds him of himself. A values voter opts for someone whom he believes is on his side against the evil other, whoever that may be. The two concepts often overlap, but are not identical.
You might think that it would be difficult to find average voters who identify with a billionaire developer and casino owner from New York City, but lots of these people exist–angry white men with an excess of testosterone who have come to believe that the world has dealt them an unfairly bad hand by putting a higher value on intellect than physical strength. Trump’s anger, swagger, bad taste, and limited vocabulary resonate with these men. A Trump values voter, on the other hand, probably believes that the man on golf cart is the only thing that stands between them and some sort of PC hell. It’s not the same thing, although there are millions of people who meet both definitions; the values group typically voted for Cruz in 2016, but are among Trump’s strongest supporters today.
It’s not hard to understand why Elizabeth Warren’s core group of supporters consists of highly educated, progressive white women like her, or that Biden voters tend to be elderly moderates. The one who doesn’t fit is Bernie Sanders, whose strongest supporters are young people voting their economic self-interest who don’t look like him at all. Unlike Warren voters, however, they skew towards the poorly educated, and in many cases, Biden is their second choice. Once again, identity prevails over ideology, at least to a limited degree.
Regardless of her intellectual and campaigning strengths, Warren is a disaster from an identity and values perspective, because she has no appeal to the obvious groups of swing voters. The Democrats would be wise to remember that next year.