The Opportunity That Warren and Sanders Passed Up

Updated at 10:40 a.m. ET on January 15, 2020.

The two most liberal candidates drove the conversation at last night’s Democratic presidential debate, but in a manner that underscores the challenge each may face in building a coalition across the party’s ideological divides.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the two senators jostling for the support of the Democrats’ most progressive voters, both delivered confident, aggressive performances in which they underlined their commitment to an array of liberal causes, from withdrawing all American forces from the Middle East to raising taxes on the rich and opposing most free-trade agreements. The debate made clear that they are both banking on winning the nomination much more by consolidating the party’s most liberal flank than by extending their appeal across all of its ideological and political factions. “This