Elizabeth Warren officially kicks off bid for White House

Reporting from LAWRENCE, Mass. —  Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren made her bid for the presidency official Saturday in this working-class city, grounding her 2020 campaign in a populist call to fight economic inequality and build “an America that works for everyone.”

Warren delivered a sharp 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 hope that message can 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 President Trump. She aimed for a broader institutional shift instead, urging supporters to choose “a government that makes different choices, choices that reflect our values.”

Warren announced her campaign in her home state of Massachusetts at a mill site where factory workers, mostly immigrants, went on strike about 100 years ago, a fitting forum for the longtime consumer advocate to advance her platform.

She was traveling later in the day to New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primary, where Warren could have an advantage as a neighboring-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.

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 Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) who has endorsed her in the primary. The backing could prove valuable for Warren, given his status as a rising young Democratic star and his friendship with one of her potential 2020 rivals, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas).

Warren enters the race as one of the party’s most recognizable figures. She has spent the last 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 reelection victory that can be used on her presidential run.

Still, Warren must compete against other popular Democrats who should be able to raise substantial money. A recent CNN poll found that fewer Democrats said they’d be very likely to support Warren if she runs than said the same of former Vice President Joe Biden or Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Still, about as many Democrats said they’d be at least somewhat likely to support Warren as said the same of Harris or 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 Sen. Cory Booker is in Iowa, while New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is visiting South Carolina. Another possible presidential rival, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, planned to be in New Hampshire on Saturday.

And Warren’s launch comes at a challenging moment for the 69-year-old senator. She’s apologized 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 will 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 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 favorite if he decided to run again.

Despite their similarities, Warren and 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, Warren told Bloomberg News last week that she continues to “believe in capitalism” but wants to see stricter rules to prevent gaming the system — a marked contrast with the self-described democratic socialism of Sanders.