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Bernie Sanders is doing his share, but Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has thrown herself even more aggressively into Senate Democrats’ debate over their future direction.
She’s taking her show on the road this weekend, with an evening stop today for Minnesota Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign, followed by a swing through Michigan tomorrow for Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate bid.
The Michigan trip is notable because Warren first supported Mallory McMorrow, who later dropped out.
El-Sayed is “the remaining candidate in this race who doesn’t take corporate PAC money. He’s fighting to get money out of politics, and has a meaningful agenda to bring down costs for working families. For me, that’s what it’s all about,” Warren told Semafor. Both candidates she’s backing are in tight primaries against more centrist Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota and Haley Stevens of Michigan.
Senate Democrats have three contested primaries left on the calendar — and Warren is involved in all of them. That includes Massachusetts, where she just cut an ad on behalf of Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., alongside Sanders and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.
Sanders has endorsed El-Sayed and Flanagan as well. In addition, Warren has endorsed Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., who is breezing toward the general election.
“In Democratic primaries, we should give candidates themselves a chance to build their own campaigns,” Warren added. “Then we’ll have the strongest candidates. But right now, big money is trying to buy the Congress it wants, and that’s a real problem.”
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Warren’s eagerness to help shape her party sometimes leads her into tough internal fights. She endorsed Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton early this cycle, who won — then backed progressive state Sen. Zach Wahls, who got clobbered in Iowa’s Senate primary by millions of dollars in spending by VoteVets on behalf of now-nominee and state Rep. Josh Turek.
Warren also endorsed former Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., in her unsuccessful gubernatorial bid. Porter, Wahls, and McMorrow supported Warren in her 2020 presidential race.
Her backing of Graham Platner in Maine was initially huge as Platner surged to win the nomination, only to crater after being accused of sexual assault; Warren quickly urged Platner to drop out. McMorrow, though backed by several progressive senators in the Michigan race, failed to triangulate between El-Sayed and Stevens.
But she described an easy choice to pivot to El-Sayed, due to all the spending on Stevens’ behalf by outside groups like AIPAC.
“My concern is about the influence of big money, the outfits that are putting tens of millions of dollars into these primary campaigns and outspending people who build their campaigns from the grassroots up,” she said.
Warren is backing more moderate candidates as well. She’ll attend a North Carolina Democratic Party unity dinner with Senate candidate Roy Cooper next weekend. She backed Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., in his primary; he defeated a more progressive challenger. She’ll also campaign soon for Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia.
She serves on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s leadership team, has donated nearly $1 million to state Democratic parties involved in competitive races this year, and even cut a deal on probably the biggest bipartisan law this year — on housing.
But now that it’s election season, she’s going all out to influence Democrats’ bid to take back the Senate.
Even though that’s not how she’d put it.
“I’m trying to help the candidates who don’t get millions of dollars in corporate PAC money, but who try to build their own races,” Warren said. “And I’m trying to help the candidates who’ve demonstrated the reason they want to come to Washington is to fight for working families. That’s all.”