Elizabeth Warren spoke at Washington Square Park in New York City two nights ago, in front of 20,000 people, the largest crowd so far in the Democratic nomination process.
Elizabeth Warren spoke at Washington Square Park in New York City two nights ago, in front of 20,000 people. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

When she was in Seattle a month and a half ago, Elizabeth Warren drew 15,000 people to Seattle Center, which was then her largest crowd on the campaign trail so far. She topped that on Monday night, when she spoke in front of an estimated 20,000 at Washington Square Park in New York City—believed to be the largest crowd yet for any candidate on the Democratic side.

This growing, real-world enthusiasm is matched in the polls. In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, she has 25 percent support, second only to Joe Biden at 31 percent. She is closer to Biden than Bernie is to her. As Steve Kornacki pointed out on MSNBC last night: "Notably, she's six points behind Biden for first [place], and 11 points ahead of Sanders... closer to Biden for the lead, than she is to Sanders for third place."

Why? Kornacki breaks it down here:

One tactical reason she's doing well? She's good at telling a story. Joe Biden can hardly finish his own sentences (can someone turn on the television? I mean record player?), but his BFF Barack Obama was a hell of a storyteller. Hillary Clinton? I can't think of one story Hillary Clinton told during her campaign. Let's see, something about... breaking down barriers? And being stronger together? That's all I've got in the memory banks. "Why doesn't she talk about women's suffrage? Why doesn't she talk about women scientists and inventors and CEOs?" I kept thinking during Clinton's campaign.

By contrast, here's Elizabeth Warren talking last night on Rachel Maddow's show about Frances Perkins—do yourself a favor and watch:

Did you know that story? I didn't, not really. I remember learning about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the locked doors and all those women, some of them young teenagers, jumping to their deaths. But I didn't know the story of Frances Perkins watching those women jump to their deaths, and going to Albany at the age of 30 to do something about it—before women even had the right to vote—and going on to rewrite labor laws in New York State. And then Roosevelt, after being governor of New York, becoming President of the United States, and bringing Perkins to the White House, where she was the first-ever woman cabinet secretary.

And what did that "one very persistent woman" get done there? "Social Security. The minimum wage. Unemployment insurance. The end of child labor. The very existence of the weekend. The right to join a union. It was a transformative moment," Warren says in that clip above.

She told that same story—an extended version, broken apart so as to be both the beginning and end of her talk at Washington Square Park—because the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was just a block or two from Washington Square Park, and the place where Perkins lived at the time was right behind where Warren was speaking. Everything perfectly framed to make the message land as well as possible. She's good at telling a story. And we need that. "Make America great again" is a story too.

Here's the whole speech at Washington Square Park:

She's going to be our next president.