May 25, 2016

Elizabeth Warren Is One of Just Three Democratic Senators Who Haven’t Endorsed Clinton

Warren might be going after Trump, but she’s not yet a Clinton supporter.

Ron Sachs/ZUMA

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“Clinton has a new weapon against Trump: Elizabeth Warren,” a Washington Post headline proclaimed Tuesday. That story referred to a blistering denunciation of Donald Trump that Warren delivered on Tuesday, just one example of the liberal favorite’s increasing willingness to jump into the presidential campaign fray. The consensus around Warren’s recent attacks on Trump, on Twitter and elsewhere, is clear: She’s positioning herself as a prime attacker to hit Trump on behalf of Hillary Clinton in the general election.

But there’s one problem with painting Warren as a Clinton surrogate: The senator from Massachusetts has not yet actually endorsed the likely Democratic nominee.

The fact that Warren has endorsed neither Clinton nor her primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, makes her an outlier in the Senate, especially after Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey endorsed Clinton on Wednesday. Of the 44 Democrats in the Senate, Warren is now one of just two who have yet to state their preference between Clinton and Sanders. The other is Jon Tester of Montana, who has made it clear that he won’t be endorsing in the Democratic primary. (Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has also not endorsed.)

Even with Warren sitting things out, Clinton isn’t hurting for Senate endorsements. She’s won support from 41 senators. Sanders, on the other hand, has struggled to win over his colleagues. So far, he has been endorsed only by Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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