Why is Senator Elizabeth Warren surging in the polls? Is it because she’s rolled out comprehensive plan after plan after plan for how she would tackle everything from crippling student debt to soaring wealth inequality to the outrageously high cost of child care? Is it because a growing number of Americans think she would be the best person, among a clown car of Democratic candidates, to serve as the 46th president? Or is it because she has two X chromosomes and voters are all eh, you’ll do? According to Senator Bernie Sanders, it’s the latter.

Appearing on CNN on Wednesday night, Sanders was asked by Chris Cuomo, “What do you think the reason is that Elizabeth Warren is catching up to you in polls? Do you believe that people see her as the more electable version of Bernie Sanders?” To which the lawmaker from Vermont responded, “Well, I think we are running against a lot of problems.” He then proceeded to describe said problems. “I think that there are a certain number of people who would like to see a woman elected, and I understand that,” Sanders said. “There are people who would like to see somebody who is younger, and I understand that also. There are a lot of factors out there.”

Sanders has previously said that he doesn’t like the idea of voters picking a candidate solely based on their race or gender, telling supporters in Boston in November 2016, “It’s not good enough for somebody to say, ‘Hey, I’m a Latina, vote for me.’ That is not good enough.… It is not good enough for somebody to say, ‘I’m a woman, vote for me.’ No, that is not good enough.” He then added: “What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industries,” which, incidentally, is exactly what Warren has done, and may be the reason some people want her to be president, rather than the mere fact that she’s a woman.

On CNN, Sanders told Cuomo, “Elizabeth is a friend of mine. I think she’s running a good campaign, but at the end of the day, Chris, whether it’s Biden or Warren, Elizabeth Warren, or anybody else, what I believe is that in fact I am the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump, and I think some of the polling shows that.” He also insisted that a tweet earlier in the day, in response to a Politico article titled “Warren emerges as potential compromise nominee,” had nothing whatsoever to do with his friend from Massachusetts. (Sanders had written, “The cat is out of the bag. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party is publicly ‘anybody but Bernie.’ They know our progressive agenda of Medicare for All, breaking up big banks, taking on drug companies and raising wages is the real threat to the billionaire class.”) “That tweet was not about Elizabeth Warren at all,” he said. So, that seems conclusive.

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