Thomas Kaplan and Astead W. Herndon

“Ask them: Where do you get your money?” she said. “Are you getting it from a bunch of millionaires?”

For Warren, the question highlighted one of the sharpest contrasts she has drawn with most of her top rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination: She has sworn off holding private fundraisers with wealthy donors. “The best president money can’t buy,” signs and T-shirts for her campaign say.

“I like that very much,” Cheryl Scherr, 63, said afterward, “because that means that she’s not beholden to anybody.”

After five months as a presidential candidate, Warren is showing signs of success at distinguishing herself in a packed field. She has inched higher in national polls and, at events within the last month, consistently overshot the campaign’s expected number of attendees.

She has been propelled in part by a number of disruptive choices, most notably the breakneck pace at which she introduces policy proposals. That has helped keep her in the news, put pressure on rivals and provided more opportunities to shore up her campaign’s once-lackluster fundraising.

Other decisions have helped her with her party’s progressive flank. Warren was quick to call for the impeachment of President Donald Trump, a view shared by many Democrats. She refused to participate in a town hall event on Fox News, a channel that is reviled on the left. She has also been the only major candidate to call for student debt cancellation, and about 250,000 people have used a tool on her website that allows visitors to calculate how much of their debt her plan would eliminate.

The website experienced a large surge in visitors after billionaire Robert F. Smith made national headlines last week when he pledged to pay off all the debt for the graduating class at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

But Warren’s recent strength also highlights the volatile nature of the campaign’s early stages and how much any candidate must do to overtake Joe Biden, whose name recognition and status as a former vice president have placed him comfortably in the role of front-runner.

Warren has become a favorite candidate among the activist left and is the subject of a viral tweet or video on a seemingly daily basis, but she still trails Biden by double digits in polls and does not seem to have broken through in New Hampshire, the critical primary state that neighbors her Massachusetts home.

Her ability to raise money over the long haul also remains a major question mark. In the first quarter of the year, before Biden entered the race, her fundraising lagged that of four other candidates: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana.

Still, interviews with more than two dozen attendees at Warren’s campaign events in Iowa over Memorial Day weekend suggested that her steady stream of policy proposals was getting voters’ attention. Her “I have a plan for that” campaign slogan has become a rallying cry for supporters.

“That’s going to be her big selling point,” said Joel Williams, 20, a college student who went to see Warren in Oskaloosa on Sunday. “The specifics that really go to the heart of people’s frustrations with the system as it is.”

“She’s got it all laid out,” said Susan Conroy, 71, a retired lawyer. “She’s got plans, and people are hungry for knowing, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’”

Several recent national polls have placed Warren at the front of the pack of candidates who are clustered behind Biden and Sanders. Warren has gained ground in polls over the past several weeks, while support for Sanders dipped after Biden joined the race.

At her events during a three-day visit to Iowa, Warren wove together the story of her upbringing in Oklahoma with a walk-through of her plans to achieve what she calls “big, structural change,” before taking a handful of questions.

“She was totally comfortable talking about any topic that anyone brought up, and you can tell she loves it,” said Frank Broz, 37, a small-business owner who went to see Warren in Fairfield. “I feel like any one of those topics, she could have spent another two hours on. That’s very persuasive to me.”

He added of her White House bid, “She has the energy to say, ‘I’m not just willing to do this, I’m dying to get in there.’”

Warren’s visit over the weekend was her seventh trip to Iowa this year, and her campaign has established a robust presence in the state with more than 50 paid staff members. Over the past two months, she has also spent more money on Facebook ads in Iowa, an estimated $34,000, than any other candidate, according to Bully Pulpit Interactive, a Democratic communications firm.

In recent national polling, Warren has shown particular strength with liberals, college-educated voters and those who are paying close attention to the presidential race. In a survey released last week by Quinnipiac University, she was the most popular candidate among Democrats who are very liberal, with support from 30% of those voters, compared with 22% for Sanders.

Sophia Coker-Gunnink, 23, who works for a nonprofit and went to see Warren in Ottumwa, supported Sanders in 2016. But this time around, she favors Warren.

“The main thing for me is the plans that she has that are just more thought out,” she said.

Warren shows no sign of slowing down on that front. Her campaign is expected to release another major policy proposal within the coming week, timed around a trip to Michigan and Indiana — the 19th and 20th states she will have visited during the campaign’s early stages.

Her flurry of proposals have often coincided with campaign trips: an opioid plan before traveling to West Virginia, a proposal to protect public lands before visiting Colorado and Utah, a call to break up big technology companies before a rally in New York City. Altogether, she has posted more than a dozen policy explanations on her Medium page, and T-shirts branded “Warren has a plan for that” have become the campaign’s fastest selling merchandise.

Warren’s campaign has also caught the attention of several liberal groups and unions. Top leaders at the Service Employees International Union, the influential labor group with almost 2 million members, have pointed to Warren’s ascendance as a reason to slow their primary endorsement process, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Some leaders at SEIU wanted to back Harris early in the primary season, these people said, particularly after her campaign’s strong initial rollout, but the fluid nature of the race has the group’s leaders echoing many rank-and-file Democrats, who feel it is too early to choose sides.

Warren still faces the long-term challenge of growing her support to include a broader population of Democrats, including nonwhite voters as well as moderates. And she faces obstacles in multiple directions: In addition to competing with Sanders for voters on the party’s left flank, she faces stiff competition from other candidates to emerge as an alternative to Biden, whose centrist campaign could appeal to a broad swath of Democratic voters.

Like others in the race, she is dealing with the so-called electability test, as voters assess which candidate they believe is best suited to defeat Trump — a calculation that can include gender bias in a country that has never elected a female president. Some online supporters have even taken to calling her “Likable Liz” in an attempt to rebuff notions she is only a policy wonk.

“I think she is somebody who could be a great candidate,” said Ann Visser, 62, a retired high school teacher who saw Warren in Oskaloosa. “I think there are some hurdles. I think that we have to get over this idea that a woman cannot be the president of the United States.”

Then there is the looming question of Warren’s fundraising. Her decision to swear off high-dollar events distinguishes her in the sprawling field and dovetails well with one of the main planks of her campaign platform, which focuses on fighting corruption.

“Now is the time that Democrats had better be walking the walk, not just talking the talk,” Warren told the crowd in Newton after urging them to ask other candidates whether they were getting their money from millionaires.

At the same time, the decision carries risks for the financial viability of her bid. Warren is counting on online donors to sustain her campaign operation for the long haul, even as other candidates like Biden, Harris and Buttigieg pile up campaign cash from big donors in addition to online contributors.

For now, Warren has financial leeway because she transferred about $10 million to her presidential bid from her Senate account. But she struggled with early fundraising, and her campaign burned through cash in the first quarter of the year, building a payroll that was far larger than that of any other Democratic candidate.

Biden, in particular, has relied on traditional high-dollar fundraisers in the early days of his presidential bid. Warren declined to name names when asked by a reporter if she believed any specific candidates were not “walking the walk,” as she had put it.

“I know the race that I’m running,” she said, “and I’m proud to be running it.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="6b23460c-33f5-3a5c-adda-06e171279063" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-2020.html">The New York Times</a>.

With a 'Plan for That,' Warren Presses Rivals to Respond

NEWTON, Iowa — To the crowd of Iowans gathered in a school gym Saturday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., made a request: They should pose a question to the other presidential candidates who come to Iowa seeking their vote.

With a 'plan for that,' Warren presses rivals to respond

Warren received more than 213,000 contributions from more than 135,000 donors, with an average donation of $28, her campaign said. She also had a strong finish to the quarter. The campaign raised more than $1.4 million during the last week of the quarter from more than 50,000 new donations, far exceeding its goal of 35,000 new donations during that period.

“Grassroots donations are the only reason Elizabeth can keep setting the tone for this race with substance and determination for big structural change,” read an email from Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau, who detailed the numbers in an afternoon message to supporters. “With your support, from organizing events across the country to the debate stage starting in June, she’ll keep laying out plans to tackle the root causes of why it’s gotten harder and harder for working people to get ahead.”

The numbers offer the most detailed window into the financial outlook of Warren’s campaign, which has, to this point, released little information about its ability to raise funds. Warren has raised eyebrows — and won supporters — for her decision to swear off high-dollar fundraising events and rest her campaign’s hopes on small-dollar donations. She and campaign advisers have also made clear that they did not expect to match the fundraising prowess of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the two other major candidates who have eschewed high-dollar fundraisers.

The disclosure Wednesday confirms that fact, as Warren’s first-quarter totals trail those of O’Rourke and Sanders — even though Warren entered the presidential race more than a month before both candidates. However, the numbers also offer reason for optimism, considering Warren roughly matched another rival, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, in small-dollar donations, and raised more in the final week of the quarter than Harris did through her digital program in the final week.

Supporters of Warren feared that she was being crowded out by Sanders on the party’s left flank, but the campaign’s surge in the final week has allayed some of the concern. During that time, Warren’s campaign team made several dramatic pitches to its donor base, sending emails that addressed the harshest criticisms of the campaign, such as one titled “Can She Really Win?” in which they laid out the campaign’s overarching strategy.

The emails, which track with private conversations among Warren’s senior advisers, state that the senator believes three things will lead her to break out of the Democratic pack: an ability to do more political events rather than a few private fundraisers, her well-praised policy rollouts, and the campaign team’s focus on digital organizing.

“The relative numbers don’t matter to me,” said John Walsh, a former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. “Who has the most money? No, that doesn’t matter. It’s, ‘Do you have enough money to run the campaign you said you’re going to run?’”

But challenges remain. On Dec. 31, the day Warren announced her exploratory committee for president, she raised about $300,000 through the online donation-processing platform ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. By contrast, O’Rourke raised $6.1 million in his first 24 hours in the race, and Sanders raised $5.9 million in his first day, according to their campaigns.

Candidates must report their fundraising for the first quarter to the Federal Election Commission by April 15, but campaigns can announce numbers before that deadline.

Based on information disclosed by campaigns this month, Sanders leads the Democratic pack with $18.2 million raised in the first quarter, followed by Harris with $12 million and O’Rourke with $9.4 million.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised more than $7 million, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota raised more than $5.2 million and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey raised more than $5 million, their campaigns have said. (Klobuchar solicited donations for the general election as well as the primary, so a portion of her total cannot currently be used.)

A New York Times article detailing some of Warren’s early fundraising struggles, which posted online on the last day of the quarter, helped create an outpouring for Warren, handing her one of her best fundraising days of the quarter, according to a Democrat familiar with her fundraising.

Warren, who won her Senate re-election bid by a wide margin in November, has a big financial cushion because of the money she accumulated as a Senate candidate. Presidential candidates can make use of money they previously raised in federal campaigns, and Warren transferred $10.4 million from her Senate account to her presidential campaign, her team said. She ended the first quarter with $11 million in cash on hand, her campaign said.

On Wednesday, Warren also disclosed her 2018 tax returns, showing that she earned about $325,000 from her books last year on top of her Senate salary.

Warren had previously posted 10 years of her tax returns online, and she has called on her fellow presidential candidates to do the same thing. She has proposed a wide-ranging anti-corruption bill that would require the disclosure of tax returns for the president, vice president and major party nominees for those offices.

President Donald Trump has refused to share his tax returns, defying tradition going back decades. The issue of his tax returns is back in the spotlight now that House Democrats have requested them.

“I’ve put out 11 years of my tax returns because no one should ever have to guess who their elected officials are working for,” Warren said in a statement Wednesday. “Doing this should be law.”

Overall, Warren and her husband, Bruce H. Mann, a professor at Harvard Law School, had an adjusted gross income of $846,394. Their federal taxes came to $230,965, for an effective federal tax rate of 27.3 percent.

Warren’s household income would easily place her in the top 1 percent of U.S. households, according to census data.

A rough estimate of Warren’s income from writing books had already come into public view from the financial disclosure filing that she made after entering the presidential race. That filing showed that she received a $300,000 advance for her latest book, “This Fight Is Our Fight.”

In addition to $324,687 in writing income reported on her tax return, Warren earned $176,280 from her Senate position. Mann earned $402,897 from Harvard. Warren and Mann reported donating $50,128 to charity.

Warren is among several Democratic presidential candidates who have disclosed years of tax returns. Klobuchar, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington have also done so.

Sanders said Tuesday that he would make public 10 years of tax returns by Tax Day on Monday. He, too, has supplemented his Senate salary with income from writing books.

“I wrote a best-selling book,” he said. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-taxes.html" id="467a929e-0a0b-35b4-a530-d87f72a991f0">The New York Times</a>.

Elizabeth Warren's 2020 Campaign Says It Raised $6 Million

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts raised more than $6 million in the first quarter of the year, her campaign said Wednesday, exceeding expectations after some early fundraising troubles and the departure of her finance director.

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Thomas Kaplan and Astead W. Herndon

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With a 'plan for that,' Warren presses rivals to respond

Elizabeth Warren's 2020 Campaign Says It Raised $6 Million