Something Nate Silver on FiveThirtyEight mentioned the other day was intriguing:

Warren is offering more red meat (or should it be blue meat?) and would represent more of a leftward transformation from the status quo, she's simpatico enough with the party elite and has broad enough appeal that she isn't necessarily a factional candidate in the way that Sanders is. Instead, a better analogy for Warren might be Ronald Reagan; they are not comparable in terms of their backgrounds or their political styles, but they are both candidates who straddle the boundary between the ideological wings of their party and the party establishment."

Silver goes on to emphasize that Warren's strategy is the path less taken in American politics. Biden's 'next in line' lane (HW Bush, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, Hillary Clinton) and Harris's 'coalition-builder' lane (Bill Clinton, Obama) have produced more recent winners than Warren's - though I'd argue that a 'next-in-line' strategy hasn't worked for decades to elect a winner who would go on to win the Presidency. All three are polling reasonably well at the moment, so Silver concludes that they're all in the top three of his choices to win the Primary. So let's go to my main premise - Warren is the Democratic reincarnation of Ronald Reagan. How did Reagan win the 1980 Primaries to go on to fight President Carter?

Reagan initially lost his first and second nomination attempts to represent the Republicans in 1968 and 1976 versus former Vice President Richard Nixon and later incumbent President Gerald Ford. He was obviously successful on his third try, beating his rival, the former Director of the CIA, H.W. Bush of Texas. The 1980 Republican Primary was nowhere near as crowded as the 2020 Democratic Primary is now, but H.W. Bush was thought of as the establishment candidate. He was the head of the Republican National Committee and had already served in a previous Republican President's cabinet. Even so, Reagan was widely considered the early favorite to win the nomination because he was so far ahead in the polls. Reagan lost Iowa to Bush but won in New Hampshire. Reagan went on to sweep the South, win California, and became the Republican nominee without much fanfare or contested conventions.

Obviously, there are many dissonances between Reagan's fate and Warren's future. She is not the current frontrunner, though I'd counter that by saying that Democrats initially prefer establishment candidates and continued governance until a new candidate captures public attention (i.e. Hillary Clinton vs. Obama), while Republicans' brand is that they like disestablishment candidates and are much more likely to support an outsider. Biden's early lead isn't something to ignore, but it is something to take with a grain of salt. Clinton ran ahead of Obama by more than 20 points for much of 2007. I predict that Biden or Harris will win Iowa, but Warren will win New Hampshire - similar to 1980. The biggest issue for Warren will be the South. It is easy for a Republican candidate to win both New Hampshire and South Carolina - they're essentially the same constituencies. It is harder for a Democratic candidate to do the same. Winning Iowa would be a better indicator of success in the South for a Democrat, as seen from Obama's example in 2008. To sweep the South, Warren would need to spectacularly raise her profile among black voters, which dominate the Democratic primaries. There is a big interest among black voters to be seen as a diverse block with varying interests. Older individuals want Joe Biden - who they see as carrying Obama's legacy and supported by their chosen leaders in Congress. Younger members see themselves in Kamala Harris and see her as someone who shares their same experiences. Warren's path to victory? Winning over those who want more than just vague promises and nostalgia, but a working plan for the future that addresses their unique issues and inspires confidence. If Warren gets that part of her strategy down pat, she'll be on track towards inheriting Reagan's success. Otherwise, it is likely that the nomination will be hard for any candidate as Biden dominates the heartland, Harris the South and California, and Warren everywhere else. Biden or Harris faltering earlier than expected would also propel Warren to the nomination faster.

When Warren wins the nomination, she will go on to face the President. Does Trump have Carter's weaknesses? Does he have unique ones of his own that could replace Carter's and allow for a landslide Warren victory? The economy's doing well - for now, but there's already been some early bad news for Trump and Warren's made the argument that electing her is the only way to stave off a new economic crash. A bad economy is the no. 1 predictor of a Presidential loss. Carter was personally unpopular and had begun to have a poor relationship with Party Leaders, and faced a significant primary challenge from Sen. Ted Kennedy, another significant predictor of a losing Presidential candidate. Trump has miserable - but not Carter-level - poor approval ratings and has two minor (for now) primary challenges by former Governor Bill Weld and former Rep. Mark Sanford. For the record, Obama had no significant primary challengers in 2012. Carter had a wild foreign environment in 1980, facing disastrous results from his handling of the Iran Contra Affair that threatened his mandate. Trump hasn't had one particular incident that bad yet - but Americans largely believe he's done an awful job managing international affairs.

Could there be Warren-Republicans the same way that there were Reagan-Democrats? This - above anything - will be the marker of a true shift in American politics. Reagan was only able to become a successful President because his landslide victory against Carter (489 vs. 49 electoral votes) handed Republicans such a powerful electoral mandate. With this victory came a sea change of +12 Republican seats in the Senate, giving the Republicans control of the upper chamber and full control of the Executive Branch's main functions (the Senate, through their ability to approve Executive and Judicial nominees and their role as the main legislative branch's main conduit for Foreign Policy arguably exerts a significant role over Executive power). A President Warren would need a comfortable majority around the size of the Republican's current hold (i.e. 53 to 47 seats) to effect a lot of her proposed policy changes. Maintaining control of the House would also go a long way towards avoiding Republican obstructionism.

This observation bares almost no statistical significance to Warren's eventual performance against Trump, but it's worth noting that in the 1980 Election matchup between incumbent President Carter and Ronald Reagan, he won his challenge. Carter was a vastly unpopular first term President, party activists were itching for a larger role in the electoral process after eight years of Nixon & Ford's tepid Conservative leadership, and the economy had just experienced a big shock under a decade previously. America's too young and these presidential contests have too many variables to really create sustainable trends - but for the sake of a fun hypothetical, Reagan and Warren share many similarities.