She persists
Description
By the time Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy for president in February of 2019, the Democratic Party primary was shaping up to be unlike any other in history. The field would ultimately become the most diverse group of candidates to ever run for president, and then in March of 2020, the election came to look just like most others in American history. By the end of the month, the election had winnowed down to two white, male, older candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, vying for the party nomination to run against Donald Trump in the general election. Biden became the Democratic party’s nominee for president in August 2020 and he was elected in November. Despite their ultimate losses, the historic number of women candidates raises questions concerning the impacts they had on their opponents. Of interest here is how Warren influenced Biden on the economy. This thesis is a content analysis coding Warren’s and Biden’s debate speech throughout the 2020 election cycle for speech on three of the 2020 election’s key economic issues: affordable health care, wealth taxation, and more broadly the American economy and how to make it more inclusive. I consider factors that suggest Biden may have been particularly influenced by Warren. These factors include their identities, their pasts, the gender dynamics of this election, the prominent economic issues in the election, and the competitiveness of their campaigns. My content analysis findings reveal instances in the debates where Warren can be seen in Biden’s rhetoric.