(CNN) Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a major step toward a presidential run on Monday, announcing in a video message and email to supporters that she is forming an exploratory committee ahead of an expected campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

With her announcement 13 months before the Iowa caucuses, Warren, who became a progressive star by taking on Wall Street after the 2007 financial crisis and, more recently, President Donald Trump, is the first Democrat with a national profile to take formal action ahead of an anticipated presidential campaign.

"Corruption is poisoning our democracy," Warren says in the video as images of Republican leaders flash across the screen. "Politicians look the other way while big insurance companies deny patients life-saving coverage, while big banks rip off consumers and while big oil companies destroy this planet."

The clip begins with the senator recalling a hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma -- her mother got a minimum-wage job after her father suffered a heart attack. He would eventually work as a janitor.

"He raised a daughter who got to be a public school teacher, a law professor and a senator. We got a real opportunity to build something," Warren says. "Working families today face a lot tougher path than my family did."

In one of multiple nods in the video to racial inequality, she adds that "families of color face a path that is steeper and rockier, a path made even harder by the impact of generations of discrimination" -- an early acknowledgment of the political importance of appealing to and winning the support of minority voters.

As she warns of a deepening crisis faced by the American middle class, Warren points a finger squarely at the Republican Party, using images of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, along with grinning cameos from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, departing House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump.

Warren is a searing critic of the President, and Trump has responded by openly mocking her Native American heritage and referring to her as "Pocahontas." Her decision in October to respond to Trump and other critics by releasing the results of a DNA test aimed at proving her ancestry fell flat with many Democrats and overshadowed her midterm message.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Trump skewered Warren over the test and said he would "love to run against her."

Asked whether he thought Warren believed she could defeat him in 2020, Trump said, "I don't know. You would have to ask her psychiatrist."

Warren's announcement also comes in the midst of a prolonged partial government shutdown over Trump's insistence on funding for a border wall, which has caused political chaos that has spooked investors and sparked turmoil in the stock market. This backdrop could prove to be a boon for Warren, who is widely expected to build a campaign centered around her signature economic populist message and anti-corruption platform.

By launching an exploratory committee, Warren can begin raising money for the coming campaign. Despite swearing off corporate PAC money, she enters the 2020 cycle with $12.5 million left over from her 2018 Senate campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records. Warren can transfer that money into her presidential coffers.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Warren suggested she was unlikely to seek the assistance of a big-money outside group.

"I don't think we ought to be running campaigns that are funded by billionaires, whether it goes through super PACS or their own money that they're spending," she said. "Democrats are the party of the people, and the way we make that clear is we join together and we fund our campaigns, we make our campaigns work through the people."

Warren added, "I've already received donations from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. That's how you build a grassroots campaign, that's what I believe."

A source close to Warren has said the timing of Monday's announcement -- on New Year's Eve, when most people aren't plugged into the news -- had more to do with a need to "build an apparatus" by "identifying and hiring staff" than influencing other contenders' plans.

But some Democratic operatives are skeptical, and one fundraiser suggested the Warren team might be hoping that a hefty day-one haul, made public in early 2019, could cause potential rivals to reconsider their options.

"It's a gamble that folks will give a ton of small money today," the Democrat said.

Rufus Gifford, former President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign finance director, made the same point in a tweet.

"Elizabeth Warren must think she can put up huge $$ numbers on her January report - scaring others out of the race," he wrote. "Only reason I can figure you'd launch a Presidential Campaign on New Year's Eve."

Even before Monday's notifications went out, the work of building the infrastructure to support a presidential bid had been well underway.

Since her re-election to the Senate in November, Warren has made hundreds of calls to political grassroots leaders in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, the source said. She is expected to hit the campaign trail later this week if no votes are scheduled to end the government shutdown.

Warren's staff members are also having discussions with operatives in those states and are in the process of searching for campaign office space in the Boston area, the expected location of her presidential campaign headquarters.

Dan Geldon, Warren's longtime aide who served as her chief of staff in the Senate and was once the senator's student at Harvard Law School, is likely to serve a senior role in the eventual Warren campaign, the source said.

More than a year out from the first round of voting and with months to go until the first debate, the coming Democratic primary is already shaping up to be one of the most fierce and feisty nominating contests in a generation.

Warren's work to establish and defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, made her a star among progressives who first pushed for what would be a successful 2012 Senate run and then, with less luck, a presidential bid she ultimately passed up four years later.

This time around, the large Democratic field is expected to include multiple candidates touting progressive platforms -- a reality that underscores her influence within the party but could also complicate her path to its nomination.

Some two dozen candidates are said to have shown interest in a 2020 bid. Warren's national profile, which traces back to her work as a watchdog following the 2008 bank bailouts, immediately places her among the favorites, alongside former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and rising star Beto O'Rourke, the departing Texas congressman who just lost a bid for the US Senate.

A CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom survey earlier this month of likely Iowa caucusgoers found Warren with 8% support, trailing Biden (32%), Sanders (19%) and O'Rourke (11%) -- numbers broadly consistent with other early national polling.

Warren welcomed the coming fight during her remarks on Monday, and in particular, the potential for a crowded field of progressive hopefuls.

"I think it's great that we have a strong and growing group of Democrats who are making these arguments, who are fighting these fights," she said. "That's how we build a movement -- we do it together."

Warren's decision to more formally begin the process comes less than a month after the editorial board for her hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe, ruffled progressive feathers by suggesting she consider abandoning a potential run.

"Warren missed her moment in 2016, and there's reason to be skeptical of her prospective candidacy in 2020," the board wrote in early December, citing a poll from September 2018 that put former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat who has since ruled out a presidential run this cycle, ahead of Warren.

It also suggested she had become too much of a "divisive figure," an apparent reference to the heavily publicized DNA test. It confirmed Warren had distant Native American ancestry, but was met with backlash from some tribal leaders, activists and outspoken Democrats who fretted over whether Warren had played into Trump's hands.

In a statement Monday, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel gave a preview of the attacks to come, dismissing Warren as "another extreme far-left obstructionist and a total fraud." McDaniel also took a swipe at what she described as Warren's "phony claim to minority status."

Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. was among the most outspoken critics and said in October that Warren had undermined "tribal interests."

"Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong," Hoskin said in a statement.

But any early missteps -- or even disappointing polling -- are unlikely to dampen excitement among the party's increasingly influential progressive bloc.

"Elizabeth Warren, on a visceral level, is fighting for everyday people and against powerful interests," Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green said, "and that comes through with an authenticity this moment demands."

Green, whose group has supported Warren for years while talking up "the Warren wing" of the Democratic party, also gave a hint of how his group and potentially others might seek to distinguish the Massachusetts senator from other leading contenders.

"There are different theories on being effective, but she believes in picking issues that are super popular and forging coalitions to win on those issues," he said. "Others can be more of a loner, or willing to charge into battle first before having a fully baked plan."</s>Although U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has yet to officially enter the White House race, Massachusetts political observers cast the Democrat’s formation of an exploratory committee as the latest telltale sign that she’s running in 2020.

Warren announced Monday that she will formally explore a presidential run -- a legal mechanism which will allow the 2020 contender to fundraise and secure support for a possible campaign before formally throwing her hat into the ring.

Candy Glazer, the outgoing Longmeadow Democratic Town Committee chairwoman, said she was not surprised to see Warren announce the formation of an exploratory committee, arguing that it’s become standard protocol for many presidential contenders in recent election cycles.

“I think the message is out. I think today is the informal drop. ... I think this is just symbolic: It’s turning to a new year, 2019. I think the timing is great," she said in an interview. “New Year’s Eve, it’s a new beginning, it’s a new candidacy. I actually think this is perfect. And why not be the first? Don’t be coy.”

Contending that many people -- especially Massachusetts Democrats -- are “very happy today,” Glazer said she’s personally excited to see Warren focus on the White House.

The Longmeadow Democrat, who stressed that she’s “on Team Warren 2020," argued that the senator has a special bond with Western Massachusetts -- the home of her 2012 state party convention nomination and a famous debate with Republican incumbent Scott Brown.

“I think people are excited, she’s got a tremendous, tremendous base here -- that goes for the entire state, not just here in Western Massachusetts,” she said. “Although, I think here in Western Massachusetts we do have a very special bond with Elizabeth Warren -- she is here all the time. She’s had a very active district office here. She’s part of the community. ... I think a think a lot of people are very happy today.”

Candy Glazer steps back from Longmeadow Democratic Town Committee, but not away from Western Massachusetts politics (photos)

Glazer said she expects a formal campaign announcement to come “pretty soon.”

Warren tweeted Monday that she’ll announce “a decision early in the new year.”

Springfield-based political strategist Tony Cignoli agreed that rumored presidential candidates, like Warren, don’t go through the trouble of setting up exploratory committees and sending former staffers out to key primary states unless they’re serious about the White House.

“This is more than an exploratory committee, she’s in and she’s running,” he said in an interview. “That’s why you do this early, you try to make it clear to the other candidates that you’re a significant player -- You’re in this to run and win.”

Warren, who ended 2018 with more than $12 million in the bank, is expected to use the exploratory committee to ramp up her high-dollar fundraising as she mulls a possible presidential bid.

The growing use of exploratory committees in recent cycles has allowed contenders to hire operatives and court donors outside the gaze of the Federal Election Commission and other potential challengers.

Cignoli offered that while federal law bars candidates actively running for two different federal offices from transferring money between their separate campaign accounts, “there is so much that you can do with your exploratory (committee) that will benefit the campaign itself.”

“Certainly it’s separate accounts, but the money, the time, the energy that you put into the exploratory it’s very much like being in the early stages of an actual, full-blown campaign,” he said. “Because what you’re doing already is hiring operatives; you’re putting people on the ground who are making phone calls to get you commitments from potential delegates, superdelegates from the activists who are out there in the key states. It allows you to do an awful lot of work that would just be early regular presidential work anyway. You differentiate the money, but it’s hard to differentiate the activity.”

Cignoli further argued that exploratory committees offer potential candidates “a little bit more wiggle room as to where (their) money’s coming from, who it’s coming from.”

“It allows you to keep a little bit close to the vest -- or secret -- who some of your support team is going to be,” he said. “The other thing that it does is it allows potential supporters to be with you who may not want other campaigns to know that they’re there.”

Warren, whose campaign officials are expected to meet in Cambridge Tuesday, reported a cash balance of $12.5 million in wake of her 2018 U.S. Senate re-election -- a cycle in which the senator repeatedly raised an average of about $1 million per month.

The senator’s ability to draw down large fundraising amounts could give her an edge over other Democrats who are reportedly eyeing 2020 runs.

Such fundraising prowess will be needed to compete against President Donald Trump, who announced his re-election bid shortly after being sworn in to office.

The Republican incumbent reported a $35 million cash balance for his 2020 re-election bid as of Sept. 30.

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel argued that if Warren officially enters the 2020 fray, “Americans will see her for what she is: another extreme far-left obstructionist and a total fraud."

“Voters know President Trump’s agenda gets results and they will make their voices heard at the ballot box in 2020,” she said in a statement.</s>BOSTON (CBS/CNN) – Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced Monday she is launching an exploratory committee for president in 2020.

Warren released a statement and a campaign-style video in an email to supporters formally declaring her intentions.

The senior Democratic senator for Massachusetts has been considered a potential front-runner in the 2020 race for the White House. In September, Warren said publicly for the first time that she would “take a hard look at running for president.”

“I’ll announce a plan early in the new year. But there’s one thing I do know: I can’t do this alone,” she said in the statement Monday. “I’ve spent my career standing up to big banks and powerful corporations, and I didn’t stop when I got to the United States Senate. I don’t have binders full of bankers and CEOs to call for ginormous checks to launch this committee – in fact, most of them aren’t going to like what I’m doing and will probably spend their money somewhere else. That’s ok by me.”

Warren, 69, is the first U.S. Senator to take official steps to begin a 2020 presidential campaign. Her announcement signals she’s serious about running. Warren already has dozens of staffers on her team and about $12 million that she can transfer from her Senate campaign account.

“It allows her now to essentially start raising money to pay for the dozens of staffers, to pay for travel to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, places we expect her to go in the coming days,” said CBS News political correspondent Ed O’Keefe.

An Oklahoma native, Warren went on to become a Harvard Law professor and former President Barack Obama nominated her to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau she helped create in 2010. But Obama later withdrew his nomination of Warren, a fierce critic of Wall Street financial institutions, when it appeared she would not be able to win Senate confirmation to the post.

In 2011, Warren decided to run for Senate in Massachusetts. She easily won the Democratic nomination and defeated Sen. Scott Brown in November 2012. She won re-election in 2018 with over 60 percent of the vote.

Warren has traded insults with President Donald Trump since he was a candidate in the 2016 election. She has called the president sexist and a “thin-skinned, racist bully” while he has frequently labeled her “Pocahontas.”

The derisive nickname references the controversy over Warren’s claims of Native American heritage. Warren has said that a great-great-great-grandmother was at least partially Native American. Critics have accused Warren of using claims about her ancestry to get ahead, but Harvard has denied that race was a factor in her hiring.

In October, Warren released a DNA test reportedly showing that a Native American relative appears in her family tree 6 to 10 generations ago. So far, the test has not silenced critics and the Cherokee Nation has called using DNA tests to lay claim to Native American heritage “inappropriate and wrong.”

In the Senate, Warren serves on the committees on banking, health, aging and the armed services.

Below are more facts about Warren and a timeline of her life via CNN:

Other Facts:

 She was a state high school champion in debate.

Before the mid-1990s, Warren was a registered Republican.

Warren is an expert on bankruptcy law and was an adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission in the 1990s.

Warren has co-authored two books with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, “The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke” and “All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan.”

During Warren’s 2012 Senate race, a controversy erupted over Warren’s claims of Native American ancestry. Warren listed herself as a minority in a directory of law teachers from 1986-1995, based on, she says, stories of her family’s Cherokee heritage. Opponent Scott Brown claimed she did this to advance her career.

According to Congressional disclosure reports, Warren’s net worth is between $3.7 million and $10 million.

1966-1968 – Warren attends George Washington University on a debate scholarship. She drops out after two years to get married.

Early 1970s – After graduating from college, Warren works as a speech pathologist at a New Jersey elementary school.

1978-1983 – Assistant, and later associate professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

1983-1987 – Professor of law at the University of Texas Law School in Austin.

1987-1995 – Law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

1989 – Warren, along with co-authors Teresa Sullivan and Jay Westbrook, publishes her first book, “As We Forgive Our Debtors: Bankruptcy and Consumer Credit in America.”

2007 – Warren writes an article outlining her idea for a federal agency designed to protect consumers from fraudulent or misleading financial products, like mortgages and credit cards.

November 14, 2008 – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appoints Warren to a Congressional oversight panel overseeing the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program.

September 17, 2010 – U.S. President Barack Obama appoints Warren as assistant to the president and special adviser to the Treasury secretary in order to launch the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

July 2011 – Due to opposition from Republicans and some Democrats, Obama declines to nominate Warren as permanent director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

August 1, 2011 – Warren steps down as a special adviser to Obama.

November 6, 2012 – Wins the race for Senate in Massachusetts, defeating incumbent Scott Brown.

December 15, 2014 – In an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep, Warren repeats four times that she is not running for president in 2016.

June 2, 2015 – Warren writes a scathing letter to Mary Jo White, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), saying “I am disappointed by the significant gap between the promises you made during and shortly after your confirmation and your performance as SEC Chair.” In a statement released in 2013, Warren said that “the SEC needs to be a tough watchdog for the American people.”

February 7, 2017 – During a debate on the nomination of Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General. Senate Republicans vote to rebuke Warren as she reads a letter that Coretta Scott King wrote in 1986 criticizing Sessions.

April 18, 2017 – Her book “This Fight Is Our Fight” is published.

June 5, 2017 – FCTRY, a Brooklyn-based product design company, starts a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of Elizabeth Warren action figures, and surpasses its goal within hours. FCTRY says it wants to partner with Emily’s List, a non-profit that promotes getting pro-choice, Democratic women elected to office.

November 27, 2017 – At an event honoring Navajo code talkers, US President Donald Trump references Warren by the nickname he gave her, Pocahontas. In an interview with MSNBC Warren remarks, “It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur. Donald Trump does this over and over thinking somehow he is going to shut me up with it. It hasn’t worked in the past, it isn’t going to work out in the future.”

October 15, 2018 – Warren releases results of a DNA test showing she has distant Native American ancestry, with analysis performed by Carlos Bustamante, a professor of genetics at Stanford University and adviser to Ancestry and 23 and Me.

November 6, 2018 – Is re-elected for a second term in the U.S. Senate.</s>WASHINGTON — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced the formation of an exploratory committee for a presidential run, making her the highest profile Democrat to formally move toward a bid for the White House in 2020.

"If we organize together, if we fight together, if we persist together, we can win. We can and we will" Warren told supporters in a video posted online Monday morning.

Warren has long been viewed as a potential 2020 candidate. The former law professor is expected to be part of a large field of Democratic contenders that could include former Vice President Joe Biden, Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the runner-up in the 2016 Democratic primary.</s>On the last day of 2018, Trump responded to Elizabeth Warren's 2020 exploratory committee announcement by saying he'd like for her to run — but that doesn't mean his message was friendly. The president's words came shortly after the Massachusetts senator announced she'd be taking the necessary legal first step for any presidential candidate.

The New York Times' Maggie Haberman tweeted a partial transcript of Trump's conversation with Fox News host Pete Hegseth, adding a caption that read, "If more evidence was needed that branding Jeb 'low-energy' is going to look quaint once 2020 gets started, here ya go"

In the Fox interview, Trump said of Warren's exploratory committee announcement,

Then, when asked whether he believed Warren could win if she ran for president, Trump replied, "Well, that I don't know, you'd have to ask her psychiatrist."

To be clear, Elizabeth Warren has not confirmed that she's running for president yet. Rather, it's a first-step indication that she's very likely to run. As CBS News reports, Warren will now begin traveling to the early-voting primary and early caucus states, and her exploratory committee will allow her to raise money to travel to these states and hire staff around these efforts.

In her video released on Monday, Warren said in part, "In our country if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to be able to take care of yourself and the people you love. That's a fundamental promise of America."

If Warren does become the Democratic candidate for president, she and Trump will certainly have a long history leading up to their direct contention. POTUS has long challenged Warren's claims of Native American ancestry, repeatedly calling her "Pocahontas." In October, Trump tweeted,

In contrast, Warren has called Trump an "insecure money grubber" running on a platform of "racism, sexism and xenophobia" in the past, per ABC.

Later on Monday evening, Warren launched an Instagram livestream where she cracked a beer open and took questions from followers, per Fox News. Per the publication, Warren said, "I'm here in my kitchen, uh, and um, I thought maybe we'd just take some questions and I'd see what I can do."

Warren then described her plans for the evening. She said, "For New Year's Eve we watch Casablanca, we get some good food ... and, um, we sit there upstairs and we watch Casablanca."

Warren has not acknowledged Trump's referenced to her alleged psychiatry.</s>Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Monday she is filing paperwork to launch an exploratory committee for president, taking her first major step toward a 2020 run for the White House.

“Today, I’m launching an exploratory committee for president,” Warren, 69, a Democrat, said in a video released to supporters.

In her announcement, the liberal firebrand argued government "has been bought and paid for by a bunch of billionaires and giant corporations that think they get to dictate the rules that affect everyone," calling it "corruption, pure and simple."

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"That’s not how government is supposed to work," Warren said. "You know it. I know it. And we know it is time to fight back."

As for details about her campaign, Warren said she'll "announce a plan" early in the new year.

At an afternoon news conference in Cambridge, Mass., Warren told reporters that she is "in this fight all the way."

"Right now, Washington works great for the wealthy and the well-connected," she said. "It's just not working for anyone else. But I am optimistic. I believe in what we can do together ... and together, we're going to make change."

The chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, reacted to the announcement by saying, "Senator Warren couldn’t be more out of touch. Americans will see her for what she is: another extreme far-left obstructionist and a total fraud."

Warren burst onto the national scene a decade ago during the financial crisis with calls for greater consumer protections. She quickly became one of the party's more prominent liberals even as she sometimes fought with Obama administration officials over their response to the market turmoil.

Now, as a likely presidential contender, she is making an appeal to the party's base. Her video notes the economic challenges facing people of color along with images of a women's march and Warren's participation at an LGBT event.

Warren is the most prominent Democrat yet to make a move toward a presidential bid and has long been a favorite target of President Trump.

In October, Warren took the rare step of releasing DNA test results examining her possible Native American ancestry, in apparent response to persistent criticism from Trump and other Republicans.

Warren for years has been accused of exaggerating her Native American heritage to help get a job as a Harvard law professor. The president, highlighting the controversy that has dogged her since her first campaign for the Senate, routinely uses the nickname “Pocahontas” for her.

The results released by Warren revealed “strong evidence” that Warren had a Native American ancestor dating back six to 10 generations. But the test may have caused new issues with the Native American community.

The Cherokee Nation responded to the results at the time by arguing that “a DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship.”

"Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America," Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a press release.

The DNA test was widely seen as an effort to put the controversy behind her, ahead of an expected run for the White House.

In mid-December, former Obama housing chief Julian Castro also announced a presidential exploratory committee, which legally allows potential candidates to begin raising money. Outgoing Maryland Rep. John Delaney is the only Democrat so far to have formally announced a presidential campaign.

But that's likely to change quickly in the new year as other leading Democrats take steps toward White House runs.

Warren enters a Democratic field that's shaping up as the most crowded in decades, with many of her Senate colleagues openly weighing their own campaigns, as well as governors, mayors and other prominent citizens. One of her most significant competitors could be Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who is eyeing another presidential run harnessing the same populist rhetoric.

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos and The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has long been rumored as a potential Democratic contender in the 2020 presidential election, has taken a major step in her political career by forming an exploratory committee for president.

Warren made a splash Monday when she released a campaign-style video that slams the "corrupt" government, making an appeal to her party's base.

"[The government] has been bought and paid for by a bunch of billionaires and giant corporations that think they get to dictate the rules that affect everyone," Warren tells supporters, adding, "that’s not how the government is supposed to work. You know it. I know it. And we know it is time to fight back."

In the New Year, Warren vowed to announce a more detailed plan. Before she does, here's a look at five things you should know about the lawmaker.

Warren began teaching at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts back in the early 1990s. She started as a visiting professor and eventually landed a role as the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, specializing in bankruptcy law. When Warren was hired at the Ivy League school, there were only 60 tenured female professors, according to The Daily Beast.

According to Harvard, Warren has written more than 100 educational articles and ten books. She’s also been awarded several teaching awards — at least two from Harvard.

“National Law Journal named her one of the Most Influential Lawyers of the Decade, TIME magazine has named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world three times, and she has been honored by the Massachusetts Women's Bar Association with the Lelia J. Robinson Award,” Harvard touts in a biography of Warren on its website.

Running as a Democrat, Warren was open about her party switch during her 2012 Senate run in Massachusetts.

In October 2011, she told The Daily Beast that she was registered Republican well into her 40s.

“I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets. I think that is not true anymore,” Warren, now 69, told the publication. “I was a Republican at a time when I felt like there was a problem that the markets were under a lot more strain. It worried me whether or not the government played too activist a role.”

Warren wouldn’t reveal who exactly she voted for during that time period, though she did hint that she mixed it up over the years.

“There should be some Republicans and some Democrats,” she added.

Warren has been a vocal critic of Wall Street — originally conceiving what became the government's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Former President Barack Obama appointed Warren to serve as assistant to the president and special advisor to the secretary of the treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in September 2010.

"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will crack down on the abusive practices of unscrupulous mortgage lenders, reinforce the new credit card law we passed banning unfair rate hikes, and ensure that folks aren't unwittingly caught by overdraft fees when they sign up for a checking account. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be a watchdog for the American consumer, charged with enforcing the toughest financial protections in history. I am very grateful that Elizabeth has agreed to serve in this important role of getting the Consumer Financial Bureau up and running and making it as effective as possible," Obama said in an online statement at the time.

Warren burst onto the national scene during the financial crisis with calls for greater consumer protections. She quickly became one of the party's more prominent liberals even as she sometimes fought with Obama administration officials over their response to the market turmoil.

She was once named "Bostonion of the Year"

In 2009, Warren was named "Bostonion of the Year" by the Boston Globe for her accomplishments as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

"The great cause of her life has been defending middle-class Americans against what she calls the 'tricks and traps' the nation’s financial institutions devise to separate those citizens from their money," the Globe wrote in a December 2009 article.

"She is equally scornful of how the credit card companies bury their real brigandage under a blizzard of sub-paragraphs and dependent clauses. And ever since last November, when Senate majority leader Harry Reid persuaded her to take charge of the Congressional Oversight Panel, and even though she is aware that the panel does not have any real enforcement powers, Warren has become a burr under the saddle of official Washington -- plain-spoken, invariably polite, intolerant of business-school persiflage ('That’s a word we don’t use enough!' she exclaims), and utterly contemptuous of conventional wisdom," the publication continued.

She’s the first female senator from Massachusetts

In 2012, Warren defeated incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican, to become the first female senator in Massachusetts' history.

“I will always carry your stories with me in my heart,” Warren said in a victory speech at the time, according to the Boston Globe. “I won’t just be your senator. I will be your champion.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced Monday that she is taking formal steps to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.

The Federal Election Commission filing allows Warren to create an exploratory committee to consider a 2020 campaign. That move allows her to take leftover cash from her 2018 Senate re-election campaign and use it toward a presidential run, NBC reported.

Warren is the first of what are expected to be numerous Democratic candidates to take this step. Fellow Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey have been making visits to early primary states.

Democratic Congressman Robert “Beto” O’Rourke of Texas has said he will make a decision about the race in January. O’Rourke attracted widespread national attention in his November loss to Republican Tex Cruz.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who tops most polls of potential Democratic candidates, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who challenged former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the 2016 nomination, are also major names in a field that can range from 10 to 25 candidates, depending on who makes the list.

Polling that has been done to date shows Warren usually in receiving single-digit support while Biden, O’Rourke and Sanders usually trend toward the top.

Her announcement drew some mockery from conservative critics.

Warren called her campaign a battle against the “dark path” of special interests and said she would fight political corruption that “is poisoning our democracy.”

“Our government is supposed to work for all of us, but instead, it has become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected,” she said in a video announcing her the exploratory committee. “If we organize together, if we fight together, if we persist together, we can win.”

“America’s middle class is under attack,” she added in the video. “How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie, and they enlisted politicians to cut ’em a fatter slice.”

Warren is a rabid critic of President Donald Trump, who has called Warren “Pohahontas” in reference to Warren’s claim to be descended from an ancestor who was part Cherokee.

Warren released a DNA test that said it is possible she has a Cherokee ancestor, but that only brought controversy upon her.

Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said Warren had undermined “tribal interests.”

“Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong,” Hoskin said in a statement, according to CNN.

Last month, the Boston Globe, Warren’s hometown newspaper, suggested in an editorial that Warren should sit out the 2020 campaign.

“Warren missed her moment in 2016, and there’s reason to be skeptical of her prospective candidacy in 2020. While Warren won re-election, her margin of victory in November suggests there’s a ceiling on her popularity,” the Globe wrote in an editorial, noting that other candidates appear to have more enthusiasm behind them than does Warren.

“While Warren is an effective and impactful senator with an important voice nationally, she has become a divisive figure. A unifying voice is what the country needs now after the polarizing politics of Donald Trump,” the Globe wrote.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a major step toward a presidential run on Monday, announcing in a video message and email to supporters that she is forming an exploratory committee ahead of an expected campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2020.

With her announcement 13 months before the Iowa caucuses, Warren, who became a progressive star by taking on Wall Street after the 2007 financial crisis and, more recently, President Donald Trump, is the first Democrat with a national profile to take formal action towards a likely presidential campaign.

In a four-and-a-half minute video, Warren makes clear some of the very themes that catapulted her to national prominence will define her upcoming presidential run: economic equality, government accountability and reining in big corporations.

“Corruption is poisoning our democracy,” Warren says in the video as images of Republican leaders flash across the screen. “Politicians look the other way while big insurance companies deny patients life-saving coverage, while big banks rip off consumers and while big oil companies destroy this planet.”

The clip begins with the senator recalling a hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma — her mother got a minimum-wage job after her father suffered a heart attack. He would eventually work as a janitor.

“He raised a daughter who got to be a public school teacher, a law professor and a senator. We got a real opportunity to build something,” Warren says. “Working families today face a lot tougher path than my family did.”

In one of multiple nods in the video to racial inequality, she adds that “families of color face a path that is steeper and rockier, a path made even harder by the impact of generations of discrimination” — an early acknowledgment of the political importance of appealing to and winning the support of minority voters.

As she warns of a deepening crisis faced by the American middle class, Warren points a finger squarely at the Republican Party, using images of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, along with grinning cameos from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, departing House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump.

Warren is a searing critic of the President, and Trump has responded by openly mocking her Native American heritage and referring to her as “Pocahontas.” Her decision in October to respond to Trump and other critics by releasing the results of a DNA test aimed at proving her ancestry fell flat with many Democrats and overshadowed her midterm message.

The announcement also comes in the midst of a prolonged partial government shutdown over Trump’s insistence on funding for a border wall, which has caused political chaos that has spooked investors and sparked turmoil in the stock market. This backdrop could prove to be a boon for Warren, who is widely expected to build a campaign centered around her signature economic populist message and anti-corruption platform.

By launching an exploratory committee, Warren can begin raising money for the coming campaign. She is unlikely to seek the assistance of a billionaire-funded super PAC, according to a source familiar with Warren’s thinking, because she believes grassroots support should be a defining factor in the coming primary. Warren has already sworn off corporate PAC money.

Even before Monday’s notifications went out, the work of building the infrastructure to support a presidential bid had been well underway.

Since her re-election to the Senate in November, Warren has made hundreds of calls to political grassroots leaders in the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, the source said.

Warren’s staff members are also having discussions with operatives in those states and are in the process of searching for campaign office space in the Boston area, the expected location of her presidential campaign headquarters.

Dan Geldon, Warren’s longtime aide who served as her chief of staff in the Senate and was once the senator’s student at Harvard Law School, is likely to serve a senior role in the eventual Warren campaign, the source said.

More than a year out from the first round of voting and with months to go until the first debate, the coming Democratic primary is already shaping up to be one of the most fierce and feisty nominating contests in a generation.

Warren’s work to establish and defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, made her a star among progressives who first pushed for what would be a successful 2012 Senate run and then, with less luck, a presidential bid she ultimately passed up four years later.

This time around, the large Democratic field is expected to include multiple candidates touting progressive platforms — a reality that underscores her influence within the party but could also complicate her path to its nomination.

Some two dozen candidates are said to have shown interest in a 2020 bid. Warren’s national profile, which traces back to her work as a watchdog following the 2008 bank bailouts, immediately places her among the favorites, alongside former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and rising star Beto O’Rourke, the departing Texas congressman who just lost a bid for the US Senate.

A CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom survey earlier this month of likely Iowa caucusgoers found Warren with 8% support, trailing Biden (32%), Sanders (19%) and O’Rourke (11%) — numbers broadly consistent with other early national polling.

Her decision to more formally begin the process comes less than a month after the editorial board for her hometown newspaper, the Boston Globe, ruffled progressive feathers by suggesting she consider abandoning a potential run.

“Warren missed her moment in 2016, and there’s reason to be skeptical of her prospective candidacy in 2020,” the board wrote in early December, citing a poll from September 2018 that put former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat who has since ruled out a presidential run this cycle, ahead of Warren.

It also suggested she had become too much of a “divisive figure,” an apparent reference to the heavily publicized DNA test. It confirmed Warren had distant Native American ancestry, but was met with backlash from some tribal leaders, activists and outspoken Democrats who fretted over whether Warren had played into Trump’s hands.

Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. was among the most outspoken critics and said Warren had undermined “tribal interests.”

“Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong,” Hoskin said in a statement.

But any early missteps — or even disappointing polling — are unlikely to dampen excitement among the party’s increasingly influential progressive bloc.

“Elizabeth Warren, on a visceral level, is fighting for everyday people and against powerful interests,” Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green said, “and that comes through with an authenticity this moment demands.”

Green, whose group has supported Warren for years while talking up “the Warren wing” of the Democratic party, also gave a hint of how his group and potentially others might seek to distinguish the Massachusetts senator from other leading contenders.

“There are different theories on being effective, but she believes in picking issues that are super popular and forging coalitions to win on those issues,” he said. “Others can be more of a loner, or willing to charge into battle first before having a fully baked plan.”</s>Sen. Elizabeth Warren is officially in the hunt for the White House.

The Massachusetts Democrat and former Harvard Law professor filed papers Monday creating an exploratory presidential committee, becoming the first major potential 2020 contender to do so in what’s anticipated to be a sprawling Democratic field.

At the same time, her campaign blasted out an email to supporters that included a that delved into her hardscrabble roots in Oklahoma, her crusades as a consumer advocate and her battles as a Donald Trump antagonist.

“America’s middle class is under attack,” Warren declares in the video announcement. “How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie, and they enlisted politicians to cut ’em a fatter slice.”

Warren, whose 2017 Senate floor clash with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spawned the “nevertheless, she persisted” rallying cry, is expected to quickly follow up with a travel schedule that will take her to early presidential states including Iowa and New Hampshire. That travel will be subject to any necessary Senate action surrounding the ongoing government shutdown.

The 69-year-old was just reelected to a second term in the Senate and is to be sworn in this week. She has assembled a staff of more than 70 people already, and the $12.5 million in her campaign account puts her on solid footing ahead of a likely campaign.

Launching the exploratory committee gives Warren a legal mechanism to ramp up fundraising and officially lock down key operatives in early states whom her team has courted for weeks. If she fully takes the plunge, the senator is expected to make a more robust presidential campaign announcement at a later date.

In her email to supporters, Warren portrayed herself as a fighter for the middle class standing up to “a bunch of billionaires and giant corporations” writing their own rules in Washington: “That’s not how government is supposed to work. You know it. I know it. And we know it is time to fight back.” Her video, which cuts in and out of the senator speaking directly to the camera, delivered a similar message of economic injustice as she traced her history as a consumer advocate who was of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The political world has readied for a glut of potential presidential contenders to begin announcing in early 2019, with eyes on top-tier candidates like Warren and Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand. Even a change to Warren’s Twitter handle on Saturday — from @elizabethforma to @ewarren — didn’t go unnoticed, prompting 2020 buzz online.

With her move on Monday, Warren got a jump on like-minded Senate colleagues, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), with whom she’s expected to compete most closely for the progressive-minded supporters he attracted in his 2016 run. Like Sanders, Warren holds a massive email list and formidable ability to raise small-donor money online. She enters with arguably the most advanced campaign infrastructure of a crowded roster of potential candidates.

Still, she also enters the fray at a time when the Democratic roster is expected to be the most diverse in its history, including Senate colleagues equally adept at mesmerizing crowds. In 2016, Warren refused the call of a “Ready for Warren” draft effort that tried to lure her into the Democratic primary. Now, she finds herself in a different moment, battling a caricature of a Massachusetts liberal amid unrelenting blowback from her decision last fall to release DNA results and answer questions about her Native American heritage.

Even her largest home-state newspaper, the Boston Globe, declared recently she was too divisive, had missed her moment and should therefore sit out 2020.

In a , 5 percent of those surveyed said Warren was their first choice to be the Democratic nominee in 2020. Former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders and outgoing Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke led the prospective field.

Warren’s creation of an exploratory committee comes after months of careful deliberations and meticulous planning. For more than a year, the senator took a series of steps signaling her White House aspirations. She released 10 years of tax returns, introduced a major anti-corruption legislative package, published policy papers and delivered major speeches, including on foreign policy and race.

In September, Warren told the media she would become more accessible in the Senate hallways, after years of avoiding impromptu gaggles with the national media.

“When I first came here, I had never run for office before and never been a public official. I thought it was important for me to put my head down and learn how to do this job,” Warren said at the time . “But with Donald Trump attacking the free press, I started thinking again about my responsibilities to be more accessible to the press here in Washington.”

Last month, locations in the Boston area. The senator herself placed dozens of calls to elected officials, candidates, labor leaders and others in early presidential states.

Warren entered the Senate in 2013 amid fanfare, including immediate speculation about a future presidential run. Already a liberal icon, she became the state’s first female senator and raised nearly $40 million, a sum that at the time ranked her among the most prodigious Senate fundraisers in history.

She had a major a breakout moment in 2017, when McConnell reprimanded her as she read a letter from civil rights icon Coretta Scott King.

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted,” McConnell said then. It became an instant meme for the left, symbolizing Democrats’ resistance to the Trump administration. Warren later off of the “she persisted” mantra, and more recently, geographically specific “Persist” groups backing Warren have sprung up on Facebook.

Warren catapulted to the national stage with her 2003 book , immediately branding her an expert in pocketbook economics.
Joining several other Democrats in the race, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts announces the formation of a presidential exploratory committee for running in the 2020 presidential election.