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Asked Why She Doesn’t Talk About Massachusetts, Warren Talks About Oklahoma

January 5, 2020

Asked by a local Massachusetts reporter why she doesn't talk about her home state more on the campaign trail, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) responded with an anecdote about Oklahoma.

"Why do you so rarely mention Massachusetts when you are out campaigning across the country?" CBS-affiliate WBZ reporter Jon Keller asked during an interview aired Sunday.

"I talk about Massachusetts, where I'm from, right now, and talk about things we do back home," Warren said before pivoting to her Oklahoma upbringing.

"I think it matters that all my life I wanted to be a public school teacher. And by the time I graduated high school in Oklahoma, my family didn't have the money for a college application much less to send me off to four years at university," Warren said. "It was that fifty-dollars-a-semester commuter college that opened a million doors for me. So it's a big part of the story of why I'm so deeply and personally committed to the idea of opportunity."

On the campaign trail, Warren has emphasized her Oklahoma roots, with the state prominently featured in the campaign's messaging. During stump speeches, Warren routinely begins by informing audiences that she was "born and raised in Oklahoma," and asks if there are fellow Okies in the crowd; she does not ask about fellow Bay Staters, according to Politico.

Warren was born in Oklahoma and went to college at the University of Houston in Texas. She moved to Massachusetts in 1995 to take a teaching job at Harvard, and from there won election to the U.S. Senate in 2012.

Published under: Elizabeth Warren , Video