Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) is probably right that a female candidate doesn't stand a chance of beating President Donald J. Trump in the general election. That doesn't mean a woman can't win the Democratic primary. In fact, for all intents and purposes, a woman has already won the contest and her name isn't Elizabeth Warren.
It's Nancy Pelosi.
Thanks to Pelosi's strategic decision to delay sending the House-approved articles of impeachment to the Senate, Warren doesn't really have a choice but to drop out. The most recent polling out of the early primary states does not bode well for her chances.
A new WBUR poll published Thursday found Warren in fourth place at 13 percent among likely Democratic voters in New Hampshire. Sanders, meanwhile, had opened up a commanding lead, at 29 percent, which is an improvement of 14 percentage points since December. Unemployed 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg was in second place at 17 percent, while Joe Biden placed third at 14 percent.
The WBUR poll also showed Sanders with a significant advantage in terms of favorability, with 74 percent of respondents expressing a favorable opinion of the elderly socialist, compared to just 60 percent for Warren and 57 percent for Biden.
The most recent voter survey from "the best pollster in Iowa" also found Sanders leading both Warren and Biden, albeit by a smaller margin. National polling, meanwhile, continues to show Warren lagging behind in third place. She is polling at just 14.8 percent nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, compared to 22 percent for Sanders and 28.7 percent for Biden.
A recent SurveyUSA poll of registered voters nationwide found Sanders outperforming all other Democratic candidates in a hypothetical matchup against President Trump. According to the poll, voters preferred Sanders to Trump by a margin of 52 percent to 43 percent, while Warren edged the incumbent president by a much smaller margin, 48 percent to 45 percent.
Warren's desperate gambit to improve her standing in the race, which involved the not-so-subtle "leak" of a private conversation in which Sanders allegedly told her he didn't think a woman could become president, has failed. She should do the right thing by ending her misguided campaign in order to focus on the important work of impeaching Trump in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Biden, the Democratic frontrunner, can hit the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he'll either lock up the party's nomination or humiliate himself out of contention, paving the way for a Sanders victory.
Warren is understandably upset by how the Democratic primary has played out. She's even managed to disappoint Michael Moore, of all people. After her attempt to shiv Bernie didn't go as planned, Warren has taken to lashing out at voters on the campaign trail. The stress of those endless "selfie" sessions is clearly starting to weigh on her. It's time for Warren to do the right thing and stop the madness before things get out of hand.