Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate Elizabeth Warren gestures during a forum at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. (AP Photo/The Quincy Patriot Ledger, Gary Higgins / December 6, 2011) |
Harvard professor-turned-candidate Elizabeth Warren is proving she has fundraising chops.
Warren announced Wednesday that she had pulled in $5.7 million in donations in the fourth quarter for her bid to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, besting incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s $3.2 million.
“With Wall Street lining up against this campaign, already contributing millions and willing to
pay any price to try to stop our work, it’s going to take a strong, grass-roots effort like this to win,” Warren said in a statement.
Warren led a watchdog committee charged with overseeing the 2008 banking bailout and helped conceive the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Her candidacy has become a cause for liberal groups and turned the Massachusetts contest into one of the most closely watched in the country.
Brown, a freshman who stunned the political world by winning the seat held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, anticipated Warren’s numbers. In a statement released Monday, Brown’s campaign told supporters that Warren “is getting lots of financial support from extreme liberal special interests and she will likely surpass our numbers.”
Still, Brown’s total was a “tremendous achievement,” finance director John Cook wrote, and the senator still has a large advantage. His campaign claimed $12.8 million in cash on hand, more than double Warren’s $6 million.
kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com
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