PHOTOS: Elizabeth Warren's 2020 campaign kicked off with an Iowa visit that included a selfie stick attack and questions about her recent DNA test
Warren's trip to Iowa comes after she decided not travel to the Hawkeye state during the 2018 midterm elections. She was the only major potential 2020 candidate to not travel to Iowa during that time.
During her first appearance on Friday, Warren took shots at some other potential Democratic candidates, suggesting billionaires would not be able to represent the party. Tom Steyer, an environmentalist and billionaire, and Michael Bloomberg, the former New York Mayor and successful business man, are reportedly considering entering the 2020 race as Democratic candidates.
Source: AP
"I think that campaigns should not be for sale," Warren said. "Whether we're talking about super PACs or self-funding as Democrats in a primary."
Source: AP
One of the first questions Warren had to address on her tour was regarding why she chose to take a DNA test last October in response to President Donald Trump's continued criticism of Warren's claims of Native American heritage.
Source: Politico
“I am not a person of color. I’m not a citizen of a tribe. Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes and only tribes determine tribal citizenship and I respect that difference," Warren said. "I grew up in Oklahoma and like a lot of folks in Oklahoma, we heard the family stories of our ancestry."
Source: Politico
Warren also offered some insight into her decision to take the test: "When I first ran for public office, the first time was in 2012 and the Republicans homed in on this part of my history and thought they could make a lot of hay out of it, a lot of racial slurs and a lot of ugly stuff that went on. ... And so my decision was, we’re just going to put it all out there.”
Source: Politico
Prior to Warren's trip to Iowa, Trump had taken another shot at Warren's heritage claims. On Thursday he tweeted a meme originally shared by conservative news site The Daily Wire mocking the results of Warren's DNA test.
Source: Twitter
Warren said there's nothing she can do when it comes to how Trump chooses to address her: "Now I can’t stop Donald Trump from what he’s gonna do, I can’t stop him from hurling racial insults. ... I don’t have any power to do that."
Source: ABC News
The tour wasn't without its hiccups. A Trump supporter was arrested Saturday for allegedly assaulting another attendee with a selfie stick outside one of Warren's scheduled appearances in Storm Lake.
Source: NBC News
Warren was outside the venue chatting with attendees when the Trump supporter, identified by police as a 58-year-old Minnesota native, reportedly displayed a Trump banner and started yelling. One man tried to pull the banner down, leading the Trump supporter to allegedly hit the man on the head with a selfie stick.
Source: NBC News
Warren's message certainly resonated with many of those in attendance: “I just thought she was great,” said Dave Oslon of Omaha. “She’s a powerful speaker and her ideas are what we need in this country. I think she could be a powerful force in this upcoming election.”
Source: wbur
Still, Warren has plenty of work left ahead of her as even those in her home state are unsure of her presidential bid. A poll in September of Massachusetts voters found 58% hoped she didn't run for president. Coincidently, almost the same amount — 57% — view her favorably.
Source: Suffolk University/Boston Globe
Even the Boston Globe, which urged Warren to run in the 2016 election in an editorial, warned against her making another a bid for the presidential nomination. "Warren missed her moment in 2016," the paper wrote in a December editorial.
Source: Boston Globe
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