Warren Secures Democratic Nomination for Senate

In a landslide victory of 95.7 percent of delegate votes, Elizabeth Warren secured the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention on Saturday. Her only competitor, Marisa DeFranco, failed to gather 15 percent of the 3,500 delegates to qualify as a candidate in September’s primary election.

In her remarks to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention, Warren said she would focus on protecting “hard-working” families and emphasized the differences between herself and her Republican opponent, current Senator Scott Brown.

“Two years ago, Massachusetts sent someone to Washington who seemed like a decent guy, but boy, did he let us down,” she said.

Warren told the delegates that she, unlike Brown, would not “sell out” to Wall Street, adding that Brown put the problems of “millionaires” over his constituents and prioritized “big oil over big ideas.”

Warren invoked the memory of late Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy ’54-’56—whose seat she now vies for—and her wish to keep “his fight for working families” alive.

“It’s a long way from Ted Kennedy to Scott Brown,” Warren said of Brown, who won his seat in a special election in 2010 following Kennedy’s death.

Although Warren did not directly confront the controversy her claim to Native American heritage has generated in recent weeks, she did make veiled references to the issue.

“[Brown’s] answer is to talk about anything except how he votes on jobs, education, the environment, oil subsidies, or special deals for Wall Street,” she said, “His answer is to talk about my family and to tell me how I grew up.”

The morning after her pointed remarks, Brown congratulated Warren on securing the nomination and challenged her to a debate in a news release. Later that day, Warren released a statement saying that Brown had accepted her campaign’s debate invitation. The two camps have yet to agree on formal terms for their first debate.

The latest poll, conducted by the Boston Globe, said that 72 percent of voters overall reported being unaffected by the heritage issue, but 31 percent of self-described Independents said that the issue would make them less likely to vote for Warren in November's election. Despite that new development, the poll shows Warren with 37 percent of the vote, trailing Brown's 39 percent by only two points.

—Staff writer Amy Q. Friedman can be reached at afriedman@college.harvard.edu.