WARREN’S PLANS WILL PUT HER ON THE ROAD
Iowa, N.H. beckon as she weighs prez bid
Expect to see U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren start courting voters in early presidential contest states such as New Hampshire and Iowa in November if not sooner, after her starter-pistol announcement Saturday that she’ll “take a hard look” at a White House bid.
“Everybody I’ve talked to in New Hampshire fully expects her to be a candidate,” said Jim Demers, a New Hampshire Democratic consultant who said Warren will likely visit immediately after the Nov. 6 election. “It’s been the worst-kept secret out there.”
Warren had hotly denied the possibility of a 2020 presidential campaign — and had avoided high-profile visits to Iowa and New Hampshire — so far during her 2018 re-election campaign. Several Republicans, including former Mitt Romney administration official Beth Lindstrom, had lined up to run against her.
But the one-term senator publicly turned her focus to her own presidential aims Saturday in a move that could leave Bay State voters in familiar territory — watching another absentee pol vie for the Oval Office while they’re supposed to be serving Bay State residents. The announcement suggests a high degree of confidence on Warren’s part that she’ll easily beat GOP rival Geoff Diehl, and an assumption the voters just don’t care whether she actually continues to do her job as a senator — she figures that the people voting for her for Senate want her to run for the Oval Office.
“I think people in Massachusetts expect our politicians to be presidential candidates, going back all the way to John F. Kennedy,” said Phil Johnston, the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s former chairman. Former U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry had hinted at his 2004 presidential plans before he won his 2002 re-election, and former Gov. Michael Dukakis hit the presidential campaign trail only months after he secured his 1986 gubernatorial re-election.
Diehl has called for her to step down as senator, but Democrats are unlikely to break decades of precedent.
“I don’t think it will be an issue,” said Johnston of Warren’s campaign plans. “I think the average voter is pretty proud of having a local candidate in the mix.”
Warren has already made behind-the-scenes inroads in New Hampshire, where the state Democratic party hired two of her former staffers. She’s also lending her heavyweight fundraising clout for Rob Sand, a rising Democratic star in GOPheavy Iowa.
Warren will have to act quickly, however, in a Democratic primary that is likely to be crowded. Likely contender U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is headlining the Oct. 6 Iowa Democratic Fall Gala, a gathering known to showcase likely presidential candidates.
“If you’re going to run, you start running. You don’t wait,” said Democratic consultant Bob Shrum, a prominent Washington, D.C., Democratic consultant who’s served on many presidential campaigns. “She’s got to go to both of those states, and she’s got to do it soon.”