FRIDAY,MARCH6,2020 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO NEWS | A
Elizabeth Warren has suspended
her presidential bid, ending a
run that once vaulted her to the
top of the Democratic race
thanks to her unrelenting ener-
gy, debate prowess and a bold ec-
onomic vision that drew sup-
porters wanting to make history
by electing the first female presi-
dent.
On Thursday, the Massachu-
setts senator, 70, was the last
woman with a credible path to
the White House to drop out of
the Democratic primary, leaving
two septuagenarian men leading
a race that once fielded a histor-
ically diverse slate of candidates.
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden,
who are locked in a tight battle
for the nomination, will now in-
tensely pursue her endorsement
and her supporters.
A Harvard University law pro-
fessor and bankruptcy expert,
Ms. Warren launched her presi-
dential bid little more than a
year ago with a promise to tackle
corruption, curb the power of
Wall Street and big tech and de-
liver “big structural change” for
working class families.
She overcame early criticism
for claiming Native American an-
cestry and rose to the top of the
polls last fall on the strength of a
detailed platform of promises to
hike taxes on the wealthy, break
up technology giants and intro-
duce universal childcare. “I have
a plan for that,” became her
catchphrase.
She formed a loyal base of
grassroots supporters, appealing
particularly to college-educated
women. Her rallies featured long
lines for selfies, and pinkie
promises with young girls in
which she told them to believe a
woman could become president
“because that’s what girls do.”
But Ms. Warren, who called
herself a capitalist even as she
railed against billionaires, also
struggled to bridge the Demo-
cratic Party’s ideological divide.
Her decision to back away from
supporting the idea ofa govern-
ment-run health-care system ap-
peared to hurt her among left-
leaning voters.
She drove a wedge between
her supporters and those of her
progressive ally Mr. Sanders
when she accused him of sug-
gesting a woman could not be
elected president. With Demo-
cratic voters intensely focused on
defeating President Donald
Trump, Ms. Warren faced persist-
ent concerns about her electabil-
ity, finishing third in her home
state on Tuesday.Speaking on Thursday morn-
ing to supporters outside her
home in Cambridge, Mass., Ms.
Warren pledged to “stay in this
fight,” while lamenting the bar-
riers women continue to face
when running for higher office.“One of the hardest parts of
this is all those pinkie promises,
and all those little girls who are
going to have to wait four more
years,” she said, before express-
ing “a deep sense of gratitude for
... every single person who just
moved a little in their notion of
what a president of the UnitedStates should look like.”
Her campaign’s most lasting
achievement may be her attacks
on former New York mayor Mi-
chael Bloomberg, effectively
hampering his candidacy by ske-
wering the billionaire during tel-
evised debates over his past
treatment of female employees.
Mr. Bloomberg withdrew from
the race on Wednesday. “I can
think of one billionaire who has
been denied the chance to buy
this election,” she told campaign
staff in a phone call on Thursday
afternoon.
With her presidential run
over, Ms. Warren is in a position
to become kingmaker in the race
between Mr. Biden and Mr. Sand-
ers. While she won no state pri-
maries or caucuses, she is set to
receive the third-largest share of
delegates so far. Her endorse-
ment could prove pivotal if the
race heads into a contested na-
tional nominating convention in
the summer.Ms. Warren spoke with both
the Sanders and Biden cam-
paigns on Tuesday night, but de-
clined to endorse either on
Thursday.
“Let’s take a deep breath and
spend a little time on that,” she
said. “We don’t have to decide
that this minute.”
While her progressive agenda
aligned most closely with that of
Mr. Sanders, a Morning Consult
poll in January showed her sup-
porters evenly split between the
Vermont senator and the former
vice-president for second choice.
But Ms. Warren’s exit from the
race also creates a vexing ques-
tion for a Democratic Party now
relying on two older white men
to generate enthusiasm among
the party’s base of diverse and
female voters.
Senior Democrats expressed
dismay that a race that had six
female candidates now has none.
“I so wish that we had a woman
president of the United States,
and we came so close to doing
that,” House Speaker Nancy Pe-
losi, the Democrats’ most senior
elected official, told reporters on
Thursday.
“I do think there’s a certain
element of misogyny.”
Even supporters at her rallies
sometimes said they worried her
professorial lectures on wealth
inequality and corporate corrup-
tion might be off-putting to oth-
er voters, and questioned wheth-
er the country was ready to elect
a female president.
The results from Super Tues-
day showed that many voters
were falling back on traditional
ideas about who is considered
electable enough.
“If you did a postmortem on
how to organize, and how to put
together proper and well-
thought-out policies and propos-
als, and how to plan out your
grassroots organization – she did
very well on everything,” said
Jane Junn, professor of political
science and gender studies at the
University of Southern Califor-
nia. “What she wasn’t was a
man.”Warrendropsoutofpresidentialrace
TheformerDemocratic
front-runnerisnowin
apositiontobecome
kingmaker,buthasso
fardeclinedtoendorse
SandersorBiden
TAMSINMcMAHON
U.S.CORRESPONDENT
SANJOSE,CALIF.
ElizabethWarrenspeaksduringarallyonTuesdayatEasternMarketinDetroit.TheMassachusettssenator
wasthelastfemalecandidateintheracewithacrediblepathtotheWhiteHouse.PATRICKSEMANSKY/APShedidverywellon
everything.Whatshe
wasn’twasaman.JANEJUNN
PROFESSOROFPOLITICALSCIENCE
ANDGENDERSTUDIESATTHE
UNIVERSITYOFSOUTHERNCALIFORNIA