Warren goes local in race to build 2020 movement
... In an era of nationalized elections, and at a moment when President Trump dominates the political conversation like no one before him, Warren’s campaign has turned to an old maxim favored by former Speaker Tip O’Neill (D), another Massachusetts politician: All politics is local.
Warren and her campaign have weighed in on dozens of local issues, from Pacific Gas & Electric’s move to cut off power to hundreds of thousands of California residents amid the threat of wildfire to a Minnesota oil pipeline, from abortion bans in South Carolina and Alabama to voter purges in Ohio and Georgia.
...Campaign manager Roger Lau makes a habit of calling local officials across the country every day, asking what issues are driving the conversation in their backyards.
“Our campaign is building a grassroots movement from coast to coast, and that means meeting people where they are on the issues they care about,” said Alexis Krieg, a Warren spokeswoman. “Sen. Warren isn’t waiting until she’s in the White House to make change — she’s doing it right now by throwing her support behind local issues that will help put power in the hands of the people.”
Warren’s involvement in local issues has even forced some of her leading rivals to join her, lest they risk being seen as behind the curve...
...The breadth of Warren’s interventions stands out. In New Hampshire alone, her campaign has filed an affidavit in court supporting an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against a state law that would block college students from voting; editorialized about a plastics factory that risked contaminating ground water; praised the state’s decision to allow people to choose nonbinary gender identifications on driver’s licenses; and congratulated a nursing center’s employees who voted to unionize.
Elsewhere, Warren has criticized a New Jersey school district that wanted to ban students with lunch debt from attending other activities. She tweeted her support for a California ballot measure to increase property taxes to pay for public schools. And she opposed legislation in New York that would have made it more difficult for minor parties like the Working Families Party to get ballot access...
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/470398-warren-goes-local-in-race-to-build-2020-movement