CHARLESTON, S.C. — There was a time not so long ago when leading Democrats warned that Elizabeth Warren’s “fantasy-based blue-state populism” risked leading the party to ruin.
But in a revealing tell of how far her campaign has come since its early February launch, some unlikely voices in the center of the party are growing more comfortable with the idea of Warren as the nominee.
It’s a sign of how the ideological lanes of the 2020 primary have blurred and overlapped and of the steady progress Warren is making as a candidate. But it’s also a statement on Bernie Sanders, Warren’s top rival for progressive votes. Sanders continues to face significant resistance from within the party — and nowhere more so than among the moderates and establishment players who blanch at his talk of democratic socialism.