Warren’s candidacy struck an all-too-familiar note for many as hopes faded for a highly qualified contender: ‘What more could she have done?’

How the sting of an Elizabeth Warren defeat felt different for young women

After boasting one of the most diverse fields of candidates in recent history, Democrats are left to choose between the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and the former vice-president Joe Biden – two white men in their late 70s.

For women, the blow has been particularly hard.

With the congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard leaving the race on Thursday, the final woman has exited from a contest that once included senators Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand, plus the health guru Marianne Williamson. Together the six women represented the left and center lanes of the party, spanned the nation from Hawaii to Massachusetts and hailed from the private sector as well as public life. They were young, old and in between.

For many Democratic women it was the failure of the Warren campaign that has hit especially hard.

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“[Warren was] a woman seeking power and that made her a threat,” said TJ Holmes, a professor of environmental science in Tallahassee, Florida. “What more could she have done – served in the military just because?”

As a young black Democrat, Holmes wanted to exercise her power in voting for Warren in Florida’s Tuesday primary. Warren was Holmes’s top choice; she described the candidate as the more “pragmatic alternative for progressives”, unimpressed by a “lack of detailed plans” from democratic socialist Sanders.

November’s general election will still mark a historic first for Holmes. After moving to the US from her native Trinidad and Tobago more than a decade ago, she decided to become a US citizen. Her motivation, in part, was to cast her first vote for the nation’s first female president.

Instead, she said she was “heartbroken” to watch Democrats “lose their most qualified and viable candidate” in Warren.

“She had evidence of experience but people refused to acknowledge her credibility,” she said. “Sadly, but understandably, Americans are fearful. And when we vote in fear, we go with what’s familiar. So I’m not surprised.”

Many analysts note Warren’s plans addressed longstanding issues including inequality, millennial debt and the climate crisis. She earned a number of key endorsements, including from the New York Times. Biden has since announced he will adopt Warren’s bankruptcy reform plan to attract young, progressive voters.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pete Buttigieg, Warren and Bernie Sanders at the Democratic debate on 25 February in Charleston, South Carolina. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Warren’s exit underscores, for many, how deep misogyny runs within American politics. Harris noted that this “election cycle in particular” presented very “legitimate questions about the challenges of women running for president”.

“The reality is that there’s still a lot of work to be done to make it very clear that women are exceptionally qualified and capable of being the commander-in-chief of the United States of America,” she told NBC News.

Still, voters rejected Warren as she failed to make headway in early primaries, experiencing a steady decline from early polls that couldn’t be revived by debate performances that included a takedown of the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

That rejection is a phenomenon many young women said they knew personally. Warren was an uncomfortable reminder of their own professional setbacks. In a column exploring her impact, the author Sarah Smarsh likened Warren’s loss to “every moment, since the dawn of woman, when a female aspired but to no avail”.

“She raised her hand but wasn’t called on. She applied but wasn’t hired. She created but wasn’t credited,” she wrote. “Imagine the sadness and frustration of every such instance as a spark.

“That is the measure of grief and fury I felt rise inside me as I watched Elizabeth Warren’s bid for the Democratic nomination wane.”

Warren, in addition to Harris, was often criticized as bitter or angry, particularly haunting Holmes as she recalled similar instances in her own life.

“Simply because I’m a black woman or an immigrant, I’m constantly working to prove I know what I’m talking about,” she said. “You have to prove that you just belong in the room to get that credibility and may still be passed over as Warren was.”

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But Warren did err, facing many setbacks as a consequence. She released a DNA test to prove her controversial Native American ancestry but later apologized, and she failed to attract black voters – the backbone of the Democratic party.

Many analysts note, however, that the gravity of those mistakes only adds to arguments of a sexist double standard. The author Hannah Drake pointed to male candidates like Pete Buttigieg, whose ambitious run for president as a town mayor, despite struggles with black voters, was praised – a feat she said would be nearly impossible for a female counterpart.

“None of them matched her in plans or knowledge of policy. Yet the votes showed not Warren, or any woman, could run on a mayor’s record and be as successful,” Drake said. “Make no mistake: the clear winner of the primary will be white male mediocrity.”

Although Warren supporters point to double standards as factors in her demise, studies have shown that women win political offices at rates equal to men. The US elected a historic number of women to Congress in 2018, thanks in part to a blue wave against Donald Trump.

But Drake contends that “those races are less of a litmus test on the country’s perception of what makes someone a leader”.

“When you’re judged under a lens that historically associates power with being white and male, it’s how you end up with a flawed president beating an exceptionally qualified woman, or a race with diverse candidates leaving us with problematic men like Trump, Sanders or Biden.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Warren supporters at a Detroit rally this month. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

Biden, now the likely Democratic nominee, has also faced less criticism throughout the campaign season despite a controversial history of civil rights votes, inappropriate contact with women, and more recent gaffes that have garnered questions of his mental fitness.

“He’s a familiar face who, especially against Trump, doesn’t have to be distracted with sexist comparisons of his demeanor, likability or electability,” Holmes said. “It’s a tough reality women are reminded of daily.”

As the nation grapples with a slumping economy from a growing national health crisis, Holmes predicts a “voter’s remorse” that will extend beyond Warren’s post-campaign interviews and cameos, similar to Hillary Clinton’s re-imaging through a Hulu documentary that examines her life and 2016 defeat.

“Maybe in the future when there’s more hope than fear, and more of us have gotten fed up with men like Trump,” Holmes said, “maybe then everybody will be excited for a woman while she’s still running and not after her Saturday Night Live appearance.”