Jay Mallin/ZUMA
Ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) issued a rallying call this week reminding progressives to back Democratic women.
“If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu,” Warren told the largely female audience at an event on Monday for Emily’s List, a group supporting pro-choice candidates nationally. “Washington works for those who have power. And no one gives up power easily, no one…Nobody’s just going to say ‘women have arrived and let’s just move over’…We have a chance but we have to fight for it.”
Warren went onto urge donors to specifically vote for candidates in tough reelection campaigns, including Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C). Their opponents are former senator Scott Brown and GOP candidate Thom Tillis, respectively.
While Brown famously posed nude in Cosmopolitan many moons ago, he failed to receive the magazine’s endorsement due to what editors deemed were murky views on female reproductive rights. Tillis has his own fair share of unclear, unpopular stances on abortion rights.
Warren’s push this week is part of an overall strategy in her recent efforts to mobilize enough support to maintain Democratic control of the Senate this fall — an outcome that appears increasingly unlikely, according to polling data.
Unsurprisingly, Warren left no hints on Monday as to whether she herself would run in 2016. Her speech follows praise from former president Bill Clinton, in which he said the overwhelmingly popular Massachusetts senator would play an “important part” of the Democratic future.
