Ready for Warren, the new super PAC hoping to draft Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the 2016 presidential race, is headed to Iowa.
Erica Sagrans, the Democratic operative who founded the group, told msnbc she’s traveling to the Iowa State Fair Thursday, where she and local volunteers will spend the rest of the week connecting with party officials and engaging grassroots supporters of the progressive senator. Eventually, the group hopes to hire an organizer on the ground in the first caucus state.
“We’re showing people we’re for real and building an organization in the early states,” Sagrans said, adding that the group already has a strong base of volunteers in the state who have signed up via email and social media. “There’s going to be a lot enthusiasm for Warren in Iowa.”
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Though Warren has repeatedly and emphatically insisted she isn’t running for president, the senator has put herself front and center this summer firing up progressives and campaigning for fellow Democratic women in hot U.S. Senate races. Warren supporters also point out that then-Sen. Barack Obama said the same thing in 2006 before challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Obama upset Clinton in Iowa, where she came in third.
“We need a progressive champion in the race, whether that’s Warren or somebody else,” said Sagrans, a former staffer on Obama’s reelection campaign.
The group, which launched in July during the Netroots Nation Conference in Detroit, recently started accepting donations on their website. It’s also in the process of putting together a national finance council to solicit larger contributions, and may release the names of its bigger donors in order to promote transparency. For this year, Ready for Warren hopes to get involved in congressional midterm races by supporting candidates who have similar views as Warren’s and for whom the senator has campaigned. On August 28th, the super PAC will be holding house parties across the country to build support. Former Secretary of State Clinton has had her own well-funded draft campaign for more than a year and a half, which served as a model for Ready for Warren. Clinton has said she will decide if she’s running by the end of the year.
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