U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts joined leading New Hampshire Democrats on Saturday as they jockeyed to shore up support for Hillary Clinton and rally behind progressive state candidates heading into the election season this fall.
Speaking at the New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention in Bedford, Warren called for party unity behind Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and repeatedly lashed out at her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, vilifying the billionaire businessman as a “thin-skinned, racist bully.”
“We can complain about Donald Trump, we can whimper about Donald Trump. Me, I’m fighting back,” Warren said, to one of several standing ovations from delegates. “Hillary Clinton is fighting back.”
The popular first-term senator, who has been critical of Clinton in the past, never once mentioned Clinton’s Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, who has yet to drop out of the race despite Clinton’s seemingly insurmountable delegate count.
Speaking over occasional chants from a small faction of Sanders supporters, Warren instead devoted nearly all her remarks to Trump, calling him a “proven failure” and framing his campaign as a cataclysmic threat to freedom and democracy.
“We are at a crossroads in the election season, switching from a strong, hard-fought presidential primary to a general election,” she said. “But we are at a crossroads in this country. On one side, we have the winner of the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton.” On the other, she said, is Trump, “a small, insecure money-grubber who doesn’t care about anyone or anything that doesn’t have the Trump name splashed all over it.”
The speech came about a week after both Warren and President Obama, two of the most revered political figures among young progressives, officially backed Clinton in her run for the White House. Sanders, who won the New Hampshire primary in February, has vowed to unite against the presumptive GOP nominee.
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Gov. Maggie Hassan, who is challenging Republican Kelly Ayotte for her U.S. Senate seat, also pounced on Trump and denounced officials still supporting him, namely Ayotte. The first-term senator and former state attorney general has said she will support Trump as the party’s nominee but has been critical of many of his remarks. Both Hassan and Shaheen stressed the discrepancy.
“Is there anything Trump could do to lose Kelly Ayotte’s support?” Hassan said. “Apparently not.”
“If you’re a Republican leader and you say you support Donald Trump but you don’t endorse him, well, give me a break, you just endorsed him!” Shaheen said.
Also speaking Saturday were the party’s three gubernatorial candidates, as well as Rep. Annie Kuster and former Rep. Carol Shea Porter, who is fighting to win back her 1st Congressional District seat from Republican incumbent Frank Guinta.
“We need all of us working together,” Shaheen said. “Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Maggie Hassan, President Obama, Annie and Carol, you and me.”
(Jeremy Blackman can be reached at 369-3319, jblackman@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JBlackmanCM.)