Warren shift on White House?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday said in a People magazine interview that she is focusing on her work in the Senate — for now.
Asked whether she was mulling a bid in 2016, Warren used language that made it sound like a run wasn’t out of the question.
{mosads}“I don’t think so,” Warren told People. “If there’s any lesson I’ve learned in the last five years, it’s don’t be so sure about what lies ahead. There are amazing doors that could open.”
“Right now,” she said, “I’m focused on figuring out what else I can do from this spot” in the U.S. Senate.
Ready For Warren campaign manager Erica Sagrans said that the People interview “leaves more wiggle room” in Warren’s answer about a presidential campaign.
“This opens the door to a possible run in 2016,” Sagrans said, “and shows Warren’s definitely thinking about it.”
Warren is a liberal hero, and progressive groups on the left have openly urged her to run for the White House. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination if she chooses to run, but Warren has emerged as a possible rival.
The comments to People are likely to fan speculation that Warren hasn’t shut the door on 2016. In recent interviews, the freshman senator has said she’s “not running” in 2016.
“I’m not running for president,” she told ABC News in April during a promotional tour for her book, A Fighting Chance.
The next day, she reiterated the statement to CBS’s Charlie Rose: “You can ask this a whole lot of different ways, but the key is, I’m not running for president.”
Earlier this week, however, she campaigned for Democratic senatorial candidate Bruce Braley in Iowa, an important early caucus state for the 2016 presidential cycle.
Warren’s remarks to People come months after Clinton gave a high-profile interview to the magazine, indicating that becoming a grandmother could weigh heavily on whether she decides to run for president.
“I know I have a decision to make,” she told People in her first at-home interview since the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency in January 2001. “But part of what I’ve been thinking about, is everything I’m interested in and everything I enjoy doing – and with the extra added joy of ‘I’m about to become a grandmother,’ I want to live in the moment. At the same time I am concerned about what I see happening in the country and in the world.”
This post was updated at 6:34 p.m.
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