Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden campaigns expand in NC ahead of Super Tuesday
With less than two months until the Super Tuesday primary, the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden are ramping up staff in North Carolina.
Warren announced senior campaign staff in North Carolina on Monday, the same day she got the endorsement of former candidate Julian Castro.
The Warren campaign’s North Carolina headquarters is in downtown Raleigh. It also opened field offices in Durham, Charlotte and Asheville in December. The Massachusetts senator’s North Carolina campaign now has more than 20 staffers, including those who have worked on the campaigns of former President Barack Obama and N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper.
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign recently announced its North Carolina state director, Travis Brimm.
Brimm was the senior advisor for Dan McCready’s congressional campaign in 2019 and was an adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2018 midterm elections.
Biden has been endorsed by U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, who introduced Biden at his campaign event in Durham in October.
Warren’s state director Maggie Thompson worked in the Obama administration and Cooper’s campaign. Community organizing director Rayshawn Dyson previously worked on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s presidential campaign as well as for Hillary Clinton and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Other senior campaign staffers previously worked for McCready’s congressional campaign and the state Democratic Party.
Warren’s previous community organizing director in North Carolina died shortly before her visit to the state. Her campaign held a moment of silence for Denzel Cummings before her rally in Raleigh.
Castro endorsement
Castro, a former housing secretary and San Antonio mayor, was one of the first Democratic presidential candidates to visit North Carolina when he marched with workers in downtown Durham this past summer. He was also the only Latino candidate in the Democratic field.
Warren made her first campaign visit to North Carolina in November, bringing out thousands of supporters to a rally at Broughton High School in Raleigh. The next day, she met with the Latino community.
Castro announced his endorsement in a video of him sitting down with Warren and talking with her about their vision of an America “where everyone counts.”
Castro’s visit to Durham in May 2019 was to march with workers who want to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“In this country, if you work 40 hours a week, you should be able to provide for your family. You can’t do that on a minimum wage that is just over $7 per hour,” Castro said in Durham, The News & Observer previously reported.
In her speech in Raleigh in November, Warren told the story of her mother saving their family home with income from a minimum-wage job.
“Today a full-time, minimum-wage job will not keep a mom and a baby out of poverty. That is wrong,” Warren said in November.
“Why is America’s middle class being hollowed out? Why is it that so many who work every bit as hard as my mother worked a generation ago, two generations ago ... finding a path today is so much rockier and steeper ... and for people of color, even more rockier and even more steeper,” Warren said.
Warren’s platform calls for a $15-per-hour federal minimum wage.
In a fundraising email to supporters on Monday, Warren said that she and Castro “are fighting side by side to ensure that families in our country today can have the same opportunity to achieve their dreams as ours did.” Castro is campaigning with Warren in New York City this week.
Election Day for North Carolina’s primary is March 3. It’s one of 16 contests that day with about 40% of all delegates at stake, McClatchy previously reported.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 3:34 PM.
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