Without Missing a Beat, Elizabeth Warren Vows to Take on Gender Politics

Steven Senne/AP

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As her dog Bailey watched curiously from the window, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday greeted reporters outside her home in Cambridge to confirm the inevitable: The former Harvard law professor and brief Democratic 2020 presidential frontrunner was suspending her campaign.

It was a decision that had become all but certain following her disappointing performances in the early voting states, and the victory of former Vice President Joe Biden in her home state. By Super Tuesday, the countdown to her announcement quickly morphed into a media waiting game. But on Thursday, as she made the news official, Warren managed to transform that foregone conclusion into a deeply personal reflection on her campaign:

“I stood in that voting booth, and I looked down and I saw my name on the ballot, and I thought, ‘Wow, kiddo, you’re not in Oklahoma anymore,'” Warren told reporters, who had been staking her out in the driveway of her home. “That it really was a moment of thinking about how my mother and dad, if they were still here, would feel about this…For that moment, standing in the booth—I miss my mommy and my daddy.”

.@ewarren: “Gender in this race? You know, that’s the trap question for everyone. If you say, ‘Yeah, there was sexism in this race,’ everyone says, ‘Whiner!’ If you say there was no sexism, about a bazillion women think, ‘What planet do you live on?'” https://t.co/uIKTIXob1P pic.twitter.com/qjdSuGd1XX

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) March 5, 2020

The heartbreak in her voice was palpable. But then, true to form, Warren quickly and with her signature precision, responded to a key question at play in her candidacy: Had sexism played a role in her loss?

“Gender in this race? You know, that’s the trap question for everyone,” she said. “If you say, ‘Yeah, there was sexism in this race,’ everyone says, ‘Whiner!’ If you say there was no sexism, about a bazillion women think, ‘What planet do you live on?'”

In what became her trademark during her year-long presidential run, Warren then revealed that she intended to come up with a plan to tackle the issue head-on. “I promise you this,” she said. “I’ll have a lot more to say on that subject later on.”