Warren to work for the cornered
CAMBRIDGE: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, once a favourite to win the Democratic presidential nomination, dropped out of the race on Thursday, setting up a two-man duel between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
“I am suspending my campaign for president,” the 70-year-old progressive lawmaker announced following her disappointing performance in the Super Tuesday primaries.
“But I guarantee I will stay in the fight for the hardworking folks across the country who have gotten the short end of the stick,” Warren told reporters outside her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Warren said she was not ready to endorse either of the two remaining major candidates -- Biden, the 77-year-old former vice president, or Sanders, the 78-year-old leftist senator from Vermont.
She told MSNBC in an interview she respected Biden but they came at many issues from “different directions,” while adding Sanders was an old friend with whom she had worked for “a very, very long time.”
Warren’s withdrawal leaves only one woman in the Democratic field, Tulsi Gabbard, but the Hawaii congresswoman has never been a significant factor, polling at less than one percent.
Warren said she regretted there would not be a woman in the top spot on the Democratic ticket against Republican Donald Trump in November.
“The hardest part of this is all those little girls who are going to have to wait four more years,” she said. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar pulled out of the race this week and two other female senators -- Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York -- dropped out earlier.
Warren was asked whether being a woman had something to do with her lackluster performance at the polls.
“If you say, ‘Yeah, there was sexism in this race,’ everyone says, ‘Whiner,” she said. “And if you say, ‘No, there was no sexism,’ about a bazillion women think, ‘What planet do you live on?’”
Biden and Sanders both praised Warren in tweets following her announcement.
“Senator @Ewarren is the fiercest of fighters for middle class families,” Biden said. “Her work in Washington, in Massachusetts, and on the campaign trail has made a real difference in people’s lives. “We needed her voice in this race, and we need her continued work in the Senate.”