Run Warren Run, a grassroots campaign effort to encourage first-term Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run for president in 2016, has decided to shut down. Warren has repeatedly said that she will not run next year, although the campaign still declared victory.
Ilya Sheyman of MoveOn.org and Charles Chamberlain of Democracy for America wrote an essay for Politico, which was published this morning, announcing their decision to suspend the campaign. However, they wrote that they were still a success, since they helped get Warren’s message out there. All three current Democratic candidates - Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley - noted the jarring inequality between the rich and poor in America.
“To be sure, Warren—and grassroots economic populism more broadly—was already a rising force well before our efforts began,” Sheyman and Chamberlain wrote. “But look closely at the way the Run Warren Run effort unfolded, and you’ll see why, for us and for the 365,000 people who signed up, this campaign has already succeeded. Although Run Warren Run may not have sparked a candidacy, it ignited a movement.”
The campaign will submit their petition to Warren in Washington on June 8, and after that, they will formally suspend Run Warren Run. As Time notes, the two groups spent $1.25 million to launch the campaign last winter. They also got 4,275 followers on Twitter.
“Even without her in the race, Elizabeth Warren and the Run Warren Run campaign she inspired have already transformed the 2016 presidential election by focusing every single Democratic candidate on combatting our country’s income inequality crisis,” Chamberlain said in another statement.