The Des Moines Register’s editorial board endorses Elizabeth Warren for president
The Des Moines Register’s editorial board endorsed Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president on Saturday, nine days from the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses.
“Elizabeth Warren will push an unequal America in the right direction,” the headline of the endorsement reads. The editorial board called Warren “the best leader for these times,” and said she “is not the radical some perceive her to be.”
“(Warren) says corporations should have less Washington influence, children should be protected from gun violence, child care should be affordable, immigrants deserve compassion, mass incarceration should end and the wealthy should pay more in taxes,” the editorial reads.
“Those ideas are not radical. They are right. They would improve life in America, and they are generally shared by the other Democratic candidates, who bring their own strengths to this race,” the editorial continues.
The editorial said some of Warren’s ideas for ‘”big, structural change’ go too far.”
“This board could not endorse the wholesale overhaul of corporate governance or cumulative levels of taxation she proposes. While the board has long supported single-payer health insurance, it believes a gradual transition is the more realistic approach. But Warren is pushing in the right direction,” the editorial noted.
Having just been given the news following an event in Muscatine, Iowa, Warren said she was happy to have the endorsement.
“I just heard and I’m delighted,” Warren said in a post-event gaggle. “It really means a lot to me. I’m very happy.”
Warren is a top-tier candidate in a still-crowded Democratic primary field. Recent polls show Warren in a tight, four-way race with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
The Register endorsement is coveted, but not predictive. In the last major contested Democratic primary with multiple candidates, the Register endorsed Hillary Clinton over then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Days later, Clinton placed third in the Iowa caucuses. But in 2016, the Register again endorsed Clinton, who went on to win the Iowa caucuses over Sanders by a razor-thin margin.
The Register endorsement comes days after The New York Times’s editorial board endorsed both Warren and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The Times said it picked Warren and Klobuchar, the two female senators left in the race, over other candidates because, “in this perilous moment, both the radical and the realist models warrant serious consideration.”
Warren is campaigning on the promise she will push structural changes that address economic inequality and root out corruption. The former Harvard law professor was a prominent voice for stricter oversight following the 2008 financial crisis before being elected to the US Senate in 2012.
Warren, along with Sanders, Klobuchar and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett, is serving as a juror in the ongoing impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. The trial has largely taken the senators off the campaign trail in the days leading up to the February 3 Iowa caucuses.
