Comrades rejoice!
Via Politico:
Elizabeth Warren has spent the past year making a series of below-the-radar moves that would put her in prime position to run for president in 2020 if she decides to.
The liberal icon and Republican bete noire has amassed more money in her campaign war chest than nearly any senator in modern history, groomed political connections with Democrats who’ve been skeptical of her in the past, and worked to bolster her bipartisan and foreign policy bona fides.
It’s part of a conscious break from the heads-down posture that Warren purposefully maintained during the first five years of her Senate career, a wide range of Democrats close to the Massachusetts senator and her tight-knit political operation told POLITICO. And it’s representative of Warren’s tricky navigation between the wishes of advocates who want her cutting a clear path to 2020, and supporters who think her best bet is to run up the score in her reelection race this year.
The balancing act is evident everywhere, as Warren takes steps she never did when activists were pressuring her to jump into the 2016 presidential race.
Warren is sitting on more campaign cash — $12.8 million — than nearly any other incumbent senator ever has at this point in an election cycle, despite what’s expected to be an easy reelection. But she also held 17 town hall events back home in Massachusetts last year.
She spent the year meeting with prominent figures with whom she’s disagreed in the past — from former President Barack Obama to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon — sit-downs that could come in handy if she runs for president. But Warren shied from repeated invitations to political events across Iowa and New Hampshire.
And Warren has stocked her political staff with a research team directed to scour her past for political vulnerabilities — an undertaking that appears aimed at a national bid. But the group of five aides is also monitoring a gaggle of potential Republican reelection opponents in Massachusetts, where hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, a top backer of President Donald Trump, has funded a super PAC assailing her.