Senator Elizabeth Warren will hold a fund-raising event for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee who could ask her to join the ticket as his vice president. As the New York Times reported Saturday, the gathering of donors that Warren has agreed to (virtually) host in June, per three people with knowledge of the plans, is precisely the kind of top-dollar fund-raiser that she outlawed during her presidential campaign. Warren’s spokeswoman declined the Times’ request for comment, and Biden campaign officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Warren seemed to align herself more with Biden this week as she pivoted on the Medicare for All bid that she, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, vocally supported in the primary. As Politico noted, Warren is “striking a more harmonious chord” on what was a major point of contention between her and the former vice president in the primary, telling students at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics this week that while she eventually wants to get to a single-payer system, “I think right now people want to see improvements in our health care system, and that means strengthening the Affordable Care Act.” Health care is one of the six issues that will be tackled by “Unity Task Forces,” an initiative that Biden and Sanders recently unveiled in a public-facing effort to come together.
In February 2019, Warren told her supporters in an email that she would forgo big-money events, which meant “no fancy receptions or big money fund-raisers only with people who can write the big checks.” She did so, the Times noted, “to gain traction in online presidential fund-raising, especially among progressives who Sanders was also courting.” But before entering the Democratic presidential race, Warren “built a network of high-dollar donors as a senator from Massachusetts and previously attended fund-raising events”—a network she’ll presumably tap to help Biden as she vies for a spot on the Democratic ticket. Politico also notes that Warren “has been trying to showcase her potential political upside” since formally endorsing Biden by calling on her massive email list to campaign in his favor. In a joint donor call with Warren that the Biden campaign posted on Sunday, the former vice president said, “I never had as many [contributors] until she endorsed me.”
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