Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., announced Monday she is forming a committee to explore a run for president in 2020, a move considered to be a significant step towards to officially running.
This makes Warren the first woman to put her hat in the ring of Democratic contenders to face incumbent president, Donald Trump, and the Republican Party in the country’s next major election.
The Massachusetts senator made the announcement via video to her supporters early Monday.
Warren has molded her political career around economic accountability. She is considered the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, established following the financial crisis, and has worked as a proponent for the middle class.
In the video (see below), Warren offers a broad rebuke of Republicans’ economic policy actions during the last several decades, describing a country that is controlled by a small group of billionaires and corporate interests that create “traps” for middle class families.
"These aren't cracks the middle class are falling into, they're traps," she said.
“Our government’s supposed to work for all of us, but instead, it has become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected,” Warren said later in the video.
In recent months, she’s called for the firing of Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan and has sought investigations into the actions of Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney while he served as acting director of the CFPB. In October, Warren introduced a proposal that could potentially ease America’s ongoing affordable housing crisis.
Warren isn’t the first Democratic politician formally exploring a run for president in 2020. Former Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro announced recently he is also exploring a run, as has Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. Rep. John Delaney, D-Maryland, was the first to throw his hat in the ring, announcing last year that he is running for president in 2020.
