In the past couple of weeks, supporters of Elizabeth Warren have ventured out into the media outlets to say that the reason Bernie Sanders failed is because he tried to appeal to working-class voters rather than college-educated voters and suburban voters. This seems like a flawed analysis in my opinion because Elizabeth Warren tried to appeal to college-educated and suburban voters and did very poorly in the election.

The most prominent advocate of this view has been Sean McElwee. Unlike many of the others writing in this genre, McElwee came to believe this many years ago, even before Warren started her campaign. Presumably in part because of this belief, McElwee threw his efforts behind Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic primary and, according to sources familiar with the matter, even opened up his organization, Data for Progress, to donations from Elizabeth Warren super-donor Paul Egerman.

Warren ran her campaign exactly as McElwee’s theory says she should have. Instead of trying to appeal to working-class voters as a “blood and teeth” brawler, Warren tried to appeal to professionals and suburbanites as a policy super-genius with a cute doggo. This strategy definitely achieved its narrow goal: Warren did way better with the McElwee constituencies than she did with others and did better with them than almost any other candidate. This success was enough to get Warren third place in Iowa, fourth place in New Hampshire and Nevada, and then fifth place in South Carolina. Before candidates started dropping out en masse, Warren was tied in fourth place with Amy Klobuchar.