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Elizabeth Warren Courts Texas Voters Ahead Of Super Tuesday

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren holds a town hall at San Antonio's Sunset Station on Thursday Feb. 27, 2020.
Joey Palacios
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren holds a town hall at San Antonio's Sunset Station on Thursday Feb. 27, 2020.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren made a campaign stop in San Antonio Thursday night along with her previous rival and now supporter Julian Castro.

Warren’s Alamo City visit comes in the final days before Super Tuesday when voters in Texas and 13 other states will select their primary candidates. Texas carries 261 total delegates making it attractive to presidential hopefuls like Warren who could have their campaign secured or broken by Tuesday’s results

The Massachusetts senator was introduced by Castro who at one point also ran for the Democratic nomination. Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, dropped out of the race in January and immediately endorsed Warren.

“I ran for president because I want an American where everyone counts no matter who you are,” Castro told a crowd of about 1,700 people at Sunset Station. He said while on the campaign trail, he became familiar with the other candidates which reached nearly two dozen contenders at one point.

Credit Joey Palacios / Texas Public Radio
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Texas Public Radio
Julian Castro introduces Elizabeth Warren on Thursday March 27, 2020.

“I got to know what they were about and what they want to do for the country, the kind of people they surround themselves with and what they’re vision is,” he said. “And when my campaign was done. It wasn’t a hard decision to support someone who also believes in an America where everyone counts, somebody who knows what it was like to struggle.”

Warren’s pitch to voters included taking the White House and returning congressional control to the Democrats.

“My name is Elizabeth Warren and I’m the woman who is going to beat Donald Trump,” she told supporters. “But that’s not going to be my only job, I am also going to be the woman who is going to help take back the Senate and put [Texas Senator] John Cornyn and [Kentucky Senator] Mitch McConnell out of a job.”

Thursday’s event was a town hall forum where Warren took questions from audience members. Her focus touched on Supreme Court nominees, combating white supremacy and immigration.

Warren was asked about perceived white nationalist policies out of the Trump administration by a woman named Debbie Hernandez who is a member of an immigration coalition.

“We’re a country where white supremacists are shaping our immigration policy right now and people keep looking away,” Hernandez  said.  “Will you please consider the migrant justice platform and allow migrants an opportunity to live in peace instead of fear while trying to find their path to citizenship?”

If elected president, Warren said white nationalism by anyone would be called out.

“I will have an attorney general and a Department of Justice that treats white supremacy as the domestic terrorists that they are,” she said. “We must recognize the threat among us and we must be willing to all it out.”

Texas is a coveted state for Democratic hopefuls. It has the second largest share of pledged delegates on Super Tuesday – 228 – behind California which has 415 delegates up for grabs.

Polling by the University of Houston puts Warren at 18 percent  in Texas, placing her third behind Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden. They are  both polling around 22 percent. Another poll by the University of Texas and The Texas Tribune also placed Warren in third place.

Warren is the second presidential hopeful to stop in San Antonio in less than a week. On Saturday, Bernie Sanders attracted 5,700 people at Cowboys Dancehall and nearly 12,000 in Austin the following day.

Joey Palacios can be reached at Joey@TPR.org and on Twitter at @Joeycules.

Joey Palacios can be reached atJoey@TPR.org and on Twitter at @Joeycules