NBC News reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren is seeking advice on how to defeat the remaining 2020 Democratic presidential nominees, and she turned to failed 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton.
Earlier reports indicated that Hillary Clinton, determined to re-litigate her 2016 defeat at the hands of Donald Trump, had been reaching out to a potential 2020 candidates, offering her sage advice , even though it is not entirely clear she’s come to terms with precisely why she lost the contest herself.
A handful of candidates reportedly took her up on her offer to talk, but as NBC says, Warren has kept an open line.
“The two women have kept a line of communication open since the Massachusetts senator decided to run for president — though only a conversation around the time of Warren’s launch has been previously reported — according to several people familiar with their discussions who spoke to NBC on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of private interactions,” the outlet reported Sunday.
The contact has been substantial enough to “merit attention,” and Warren and Clinton have talked so recently that the interaction was “front of mind” for the source.
Back in August, The New York Times reported that Warren was making inroads with Democratic insiders, actively courting high-powered politicos within the Democratic sphere in order to solidify support for a potential 2020 candidacy among key decision-makers, especially DNC power players who can make her life much easier from behind the scenes during the nomination process.
Elizabeth Warren has also been hitting the campaign trail for Democrats competing in House, Senate, and state-level races in the hopes that winners will turn around and support her as the 2020 Democratic National Convention inches closer.
Warren is also trying to make the case to party insiders that they don’t necessarily need to go with a more “moderate” candidate like Joe Biden in order to successfully take on President Trump: “Ms. Warren is also trying to allay concerns among Democrats that, as a progressive candidate proposing sweeping change, she may not have enough mainstream appeal to compete with President Trump in the general election.”
It seems that on top on her list of potential allies is Hillary Clinton. Warren wants Clinton’s support base — specifically the middle-aged leftist women who make up the core of the “Resistance” — and she likely understands that while Clinton is now a pariah among the Dems, she still holds sway within the party and wields power over some of the Democrats’ biggest donors.
Clinton also wants to be known as a vocal supporter of female candidates, and there aren’t many of those left with an actual shot at the nomination. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Clinton’s heir apparent and her successor in New York dropped out of the race after months of pointless campaigning. Sen. Kamala Harris has never been a close ally of the Clintons, and most of the rest of the field is too little-known to have any real chance at taking the nomination.
This means that Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton are now chatting semi-regularly, forging the kind of faux friendship that will serve them well in the coming months.
