
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) suspended her campaign Thursday, ending a White House bid highlighted by fierce debate performances and strong grassroots support. Once considered a frontrunner in the primary race, Warren found little support from voters in Super Tuesday states.
“I may not be in the race for President in 2020, but this fight—our fight—is not over. And our place in this fight has not ended,” Warren said in remarks to her campaign staff on Thursday.
Like her fellow progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Warren rejected big-dollar fundraisers and relied mostly on small donors to fund her campaign. Of her $92 million fundraising haul, more than half came from those giving $200 or less. Warren’s campaign received significant support from women donors, who accounted for more than half of her fundraising total. She did not have a stark gender gap like Sanders, who received 39 percent of his campaign cash from women.
Following expensive investments in early primary states that didn’t pan out, Warren ended her campaign low on cash. Warren’s Jan. 31 filing showed she had less than $2.3 million cash on hand and was $400,000 in debt.
With Warren out of the race, her small donors could pivot to Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii). OpenSecrets’ found that donors to Warren are likely to donate to other Democrats in the field. More than 17 percent of Warren donors also donated to Sanders, giving $16.4 million.
Warren, who spearheaded the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the 2008 financial crisis, proposed detailed policies to lessen corporate influence in Washington. Her plans included a corporate lobbying tax and a ban on members of Congress from serving on corporate boards. Wall Street grew fearful of what a Warren presidency could mean for its bottom line and bankrolled other candidates like Biden.
On the campaign trail, Warren condemned her Democratic opponents for accepting help from deep-pocketed donors, like former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who also dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden. The attacks were often reciprocated, resulting in Warren being called out for using the same fundraising techniques before her presidential run.
Though more than half of her monetary support came from small donors, Warren still received big-dollar donations during her 2018 Senate reelection campaign. She used $11 million from her Senate campaign to kickstart her presidential bid, which consisted primarily of small donors.
“Never again can anyone say that the only way that a newcomer can get a chance to be a plausible candidate is to take money from corporate executives and billionaires,” Warren said following the announcement to her staff.
While Warren had earlier denounced super PAC money, she refused to disavow support from an outside group during the final stages of her campaign. Persist PAC unleashed $14.8 million in ads supporting Warren’s presidential bid ahead of key Super Tuesday races, highlighting Warren’s willingness to take on Wall Street. The liberal super PAC refused to voluntarily disclose its donors before the March 20 filing deadline.
Warren was a serious contender in what originally started as the most diverse Democratic primary. Polling in September and October gave her a significant lead over Sanders, her biggest ideological competitor. She was also just a few points behind Biden, who was ahead in the polls at the time.
Pressure mounted on Warren as the stage crowded and the primaries escalated to becoming the most expensive in history. She spent over $27 million on advertising with over $673,000 on Google ads in January and February for the early primaries. Her campaign struggled after her big investments in the early states did not pay off in the polls. Low on cash, her campaign took out a $3 million line of credit to pay her bills in late January but only accessed $400,000 from the loan.
Warren failed to make a mark in Iowa and Nevada where Sanders, Buttigieg and Biden outperformed her. In New Hampshire, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who dropped out of the race before the Minnesota primary, edged her out as well.
On Super Tuesday, Warren’s performance was surprisingly poor in her home state of Massachusetts. Coming in third after Biden and Sanders, she received over 21 percent of the vote for a total of 23 delegates. She made no significant headway in the other 13 states as well.
While former candidates like Buttigieg, Klobuchar and billionaire Mike Bloomberg announced their support for Biden after dropping out this week, it is unclear whether Warren will back any candidate in the primary. In the 2016 Democratic primaries, she didn’t endorse Sanders or Hillary Clinton, despite her history of working with Sanders.
One of Warren’s most notable moments over the course of her campaign was her debate performance in Las Vegas, where she challenged Bloomberg in a combative performance that made headlines. She made sure to mention it during her announcement on Thursday.
“In this campaign, we have been willing to fight, and, when necessary, we left plenty of blood and teeth on the floor. And I can think of one billionaire who has been denied the chance to buy this election,” Warren reportedly told staffers.
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