Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) on Thursday offered a half-answer when questioned by reporters in Massachusetts about her political future.
Warren took questions from reporters after a conducting a town hall in Boston. The senator, a progressive stalwart who many believe is readying a challenge to President Donald Trump in 2020, was asked if she would commit to serving a full six-year term in Congress if reelected in 2018, according to masslive.com.
"It's certainly my plan," Warren said.
When asked again by a reporter if a run for the White House was in her future, the senator again demurred, choosing instead to focus on the present.
"I'm running for the United States Senate in 2018," Warren said. "I am not running for President of the United States. That's my plan."
Such questions on 2020 and their Shermanesque responses have become a modern cat-and-mouse game between reporters and aspirants to the White House. The questions have become more frequent for Warren as she has taken an increasingly higher-profile in the national Democratic Party since the loss of Hillary Clinton two years ago, and her responses this week reflected ones given to multiple news networks in March. Warren, at that time, coyly responded to questions from CNN, NBC, and Fox by saying "I'm not running" for president, but she also refused to commit to serving a full six-year term in the Senate if re-elected in November.
Warren also announced in March that she would be donating $5,000 to every state Democratic Party in the country. The senator has also staffed up her political operation, claiming it was in preparation for her 2018 reelection race, by hiring the top digital strategist for President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns.
Since emerging on the political scene in 2012, Warren has a cut progressive-populist profile that many believe can bridge the divide between the supporters of Clinton and her 2016 Democratic primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). Before she can mount a credible challenge to Trump in 2020, however, she must secure reelection in deep blue Massachusetts.
Geoff Diehl, a Massachusetts state representative vying for the Republican nomination to challenge Warren, has been a vocal critic of the senator's out-of-state travel. Diehl has castigated the senator for being more focused on selling books and fundraising for national Democrats than on working to represent the citizens of her state.