Warren takes big step toward 2020 campaign
WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday took the first major step toward launching a widely anticipated campaign for the presidency, hoping her reputation as a populist fighter can help her navigate a Democratic field that could include nearly two dozen candidates.
“No matter what our differences, most of us want the same thing,” the 69-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a video that highlights her family’s history in Oklahoma. “To be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules and take care of the people we love. That’s what I’m fighting for and that’s why today I’m launching an exploratory committee for president.”
Warren burst onto the national scene a decade ago during the financial crisis with calls for greater consumer protections. Now, as a likely presidential contender, she is making an appeal to the party’s base. Her video notes the economic challenges facing people of color along with images of a women’s march and Warren’s participation at an LGBT event.
In an email to supporters, Warren said she’d more formally announce a campaign plan early in 2019.
Warren is the most prominent Democrat yet to make a move toward a presidential bid and has long been a favorite target of President Donald Trump.
In mid-December, former Obama housing chief Julian Castro also announced a presidential exploratory committee, which legally allows potential candidates to begin raising money. Outgoing Maryland Rep. John Delaney is the only Democrat so far to have formally announced a presidential campaign.
Warren must move past a widely panned October release of a DNA test meant to bolster her claim to Native American heritage. Speaking to reporters Monday outside her Cambridge, Massachusetts, home, Warren largely danced around a question on whether she wishes she had handled the DNA test release any differently.
“I have put it all out there. It’s there for anyone to see,” Warren said. “But at the end of the day … this election going forward is going to be about the tens of millions of families across this country who work hard, who play to the rules and who just time after time take one body blow after another.”
Trump told Fox News Channel’s “All-American New Year” in an interview to be broadcast Monday night that “I’d love to run against her.”