× Expand John Locher/AP Photo Nevada was where Warren had to keep her campaign alive. She succeeded.

Elizabeth Warren was prematurely relegated to the second tier in part because a lot of commentators and ordinary voters doubted whether she could stand up to Donald Trump. Warren has lagged behind other Democratic candidates in head-to-head general-election match-up polls.

For instance, the Washington Post/ABC News poll released just before the Nevada debate showed Biden defeating Trump by seven points, Sanders by six, Bloomberg by five, and Warren winning by just one. And when asked in that poll “which candidate has the best chance in the general election,” Warren earned just 3 percent of the vote, behind everyone except Tom Steyer.

But that was then. Warren demonstrated last night that she is not just deft and tough at swatting away other Democratic rivals. She is at her absolute best in taking on and taking down male corporate bullies.

If you think the Nevada debate was a desperate one-off, check out Warren’s performance eviscerating the CEO of Wells Fargo, Timothy Sloan, when he testified before the Senate Banking Committee.

That was in September 2016. It set off devastating reverberations. In March 2017, Sloan abruptly resigned (was fired). That was the second Wells Fargo CEO she forced into retirement; her questioning of Sloan’s predecessor John Stumpf also led to him stepping down.

This is Warren playing to her best strengths. If Bloomberg’s sexism, racism, and plutocracy present a fat target, Trump is of course an even fatter one. Bloomberg’s sins are almost tame by comparison.

Watching Warren in action, you can appreciate why she was Oklahoma debate champion and why she went to college on a debate scholarship. She combines toughness and believable indignation with a lot of homework and superb technique.

When Bloomberg clumsily sought to apologize for stop-and-frisk, she skewered him for making the wrong apology. And when he tried to hide sexual harassment episodes behind a wall of nondisclosure agreements, she hung him out to dry and let him twist in the wind.

In short, she persists.

As a woman, Warren is sometimes thought to be vulnerable in a debate against Trump. We all remember Trump looming over Hillary Clinton like a menacing Hulk.

But Warren is not Clinton. For starters, Clinton could not fully raise Trump’s greatest vulnerability: his grotesque treatment and characterization of women. First, there was the unfortunate ghost of Bill’s serial womanizing. And to compound the damage, there was the pathetic sexting of Anthony Weiner, husband of Clinton’s closest aide.

Clinton was also on the defensive due to the email lapses—Weiner got into that act, too—and as a fee-grabbing Wall Street Democrat in a year when the disaffected working class was seeking a champion. Hoping for a wave of women’s support, Clinton, as a blemished exemplar of independent womanhood, managed to lose the white women’s vote—to Donald Trump!—by ten points.

Warren has none of this baggage, and she is a far better debater. There is no way she will let Trump play the Hulk. Her record is unblemished. The worst that he can throw at her is Pocahontas.

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(I heard Al Franken, in his return to stand-up, suggest a rejoinder for Warren: “Pocahontas? How about poke-a-porn-star? How about poke-a-prostitute while your wife is pregnant?” Warren would never say that, of course, but it’s a demonstration of Trump’s many vulnerabilities.)

Warren may or may not be the nominee. But she has forced people who doubt her ability to beat Trump to take a long second look.

In the past, Warren skeptics have said she comes across as too shrill, too preachy. Last night, she ignored those warnings, and doubled down on sheer toughness, even risking that some voters would feel that she wandered into “mean girl” territory. We’ll have to await the result of the Nevada caucuses, further polls, debates, and primaries to see the net-net. One problem Warren has is that 70,000 voters have already participated in early-voting caucuses, with their vote unaffected by last night’s performance. (Only 84,000 Nevadans voted in the 2016 caucuses in total.) But the Warren campaign raised over $2.8 million on debate day alone, suggesting at least the stirrings of more support.

Nevada was where Warren had to keep her campaign alive. She succeeded. More importantly, without saying it in so many words she reminded all of us that these debates are first and foremost auditions for the role of taking on Donald Trump.

Warren strategists have sought a lane in which Warren emerges as the unifier in the event that Sanders does not win a majority of delegates on the first ballot. Presumably, though very much a progressive she is a little more acceptable to moderate liberals than Sanders; and she is the one other candidate whom Sanders backers might grudgingly live with, if their man falls short.

This all still presents a very tricky politics. Until Wednesday’s debate, it seemed utopian. Everything would have to break right for Warren; and Sanders did well Wednesday, and is still far ahead.

But until yesterday, one key aspect was left out of the calculus—Warren as a lethal avenger against Donald Trump.