2020 Democratic Primary Candidates: Elizabeth Warren By Phillip Howard
This series introduces 2020 Democratic primary candidates. Previous articles examined Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris.
Senator Elizabeth Warren was the first person to informally announce her presidential candidacy in December of 2018. Warren spent three decades as a university law professor before becoming an assistant to President Barack Obama and special adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury. Warren was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 2013.
Warren’s formal announcement in February this year frequently criticized President Trump, and she recently called for him to be impeached, asking members of Congress to set aside “political considerations and do their constitutional duty.” Warren said of Trump, “if any other human being in this country had done what's documented in the Mueller report, they would be arrested and put in jail."
Addressing inequality is a main focus for Warren, who proposed a tax on individuals making over $50 million to generate $2 trillion in revenue to put towards reducing rent across the country, providing a down payment on the Green New Deal, and rebuilding infrastructure. Warren recently announced a plan to forgive student loan debt up to $50,000 per individual, which would impact more than 42 million Americans.
Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty
Warren believes she is running on a strategy of “nerding out.” This includes a heavy focus on policy reform along of variety of areas, including childcare, gun control, criminal justice, debt relief, and market regulation.
Recent polling shows Warren with 6 percent of the Democratic vote, putting her well behind front runners, such as Joe Biden, who is expected to declare his candidacy Thursday, and Bernie Sanders, who first ran in 2016. Warren raised $6 million in campaign funding, which came on the heels of refusing contributions from large donors, prompting the resignation of her finance director.
Warren is poised to sustain her campaign till voting begins early next year and campaign her own way- a strong Trump critic with detailed policy proposals and disinterest in seeking typical big money donors.
Phillip Howard is a graduate student at Utica College
