US Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren made her bid for the presidency official on Saturday, grounding her 2020 campaign in a populist call to fight economic inequality and build "an America that works for everyone".
Elizabeth Warren Photo: AFP
Ms Warren delivered a call for change at her presidential kickoff, decrying a "middle-class squeeze" that has left Americans crunched with "too little accountability for the rich, too little opportunity for everyone else".
She and her backers hoped that message could distinguish her in a crowded Democratic field and help her move past the controversy surrounding her past claims to Native American heritage.
Weaving specific policy prescriptions into her remarks, from Medicare for All to the elimination of Washington "lobbying as we know it," Warren avoided taking direct jabs at US President Donald Trump.
She aimed for a broader institutional shift instead, urging supporters to choose "a government that makes different choices, choices that reflect our values."
Ms Warren announced her campaign in her home state of Massachusetts at a mill site where largely immigrant factory workers went on strike about 100 years ago, a fitting forum for the longtime consumer advocate to advance her platform.
She was scheduled to travel later in the day to New Hampshire, home to the nation's first primary, where Ms Warren could have an advantage as a neighbouring-state resident with high name recognition. She intended to spend Sunday in Iowa, where the leadoff caucuses will be the first test of candidates' viability.
Ms Warren was the first high-profile Democrat to signal interest in running for the White House, forming an exploratory committee on New Year's Eve.
She was introduced Saturday by Democratic Rep Joe Kennedy III, who has endorsed her in the primary. The backing could prove valuable for Ms Warren, given his status as a rising young Democratic star and his friendship with one of her potential 2020 rivals, former Democratic Rep Beto O'Rourke.
Ms Warren enters the race as one of the party's most recognizable figures. She has spent the past decade in the national spotlight, first emerging as a consumer activist during the financial crisis. She later led the congressional panel that oversaw the 2008 financial industry bailout. After Republicans blocked her from running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency she helped create, she ran for the Senate in 2012 and unseated a GOP incumbent.
She has $11 million left over from her commanding 2018 Senate re-election victory that can be used on her presidential run.
Kamala Harris Photo: AFP
Still, Ms Warren must compete against other popular Democrats who will be able to raise substantial money. A recent CNN poll found that fewer Democrats said they'd be very likely to support Ms Warren if she ran than said the same of former Vice President Joe Biden or Senators Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Still, about as many Democrats said they'd be at least somewhat likely to support Ms Warren as said the same of Ms Harris or Mr Sanders.
That challenge is on display this weekend as Democratic presidential contenders - or those considering a run - fan out across the crucial early-voting states. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is in Iowa, while New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is visiting South Carolina. Another possible presidential rival, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, planned to be in New Hampshire on Saturday.
And Ms Warren's launch comes at a challenging moment for the 69-year-old senator. She's apologised twice over the past two weeks for claiming Native American identity on multiple occasions early in her career. That claim has created fodder for Republicans and could overshadow her campaign.
The campaign launch will test whether the controversy is simply a Washington obsession or a substantive threat to her candidacy. Doug Rubin, a Boston-based strategist who advised Warren during her first Senate run in 2012, said in an interview that most voters would respond to "the powerful message she's been talking about," in terms of battling social and economic injustices, rather than the back-and-forth over her personal identity.
Another threat could come from a fellow senator who has yet to announce his own plans for 2020: Sanders. They're both leaders of the Democrats' liberal vanguard, but some Mr Sanders supporters are still upset she didn't support him during his 2016 primary run against Hillary Clinton. And as a senator from Vermont who won the New Hampshire primary, he would likely go into the Granite State as an early favourite if he decided to run again.
Despite their similarities, Ms Warren and Mr Sanders have taken somewhat divergent paths in recent months as they prepare for the primary. After proposing an "ultra-millionaire tax" that would hit the wealthiest 75,000 households in America, Ms Warren told Bloomberg News last week that she continued to "believe in capitalism" but wanted to see stricter rules to prevent gaming the system - a marked contrast with the self-described democratic socialism of Sanders.
- AP