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Elizabeth Warren: Everything you need to know about the 2020 presidential candidate

Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the last remaining woman candidate in the top tier.

ByAnnika Merrilees, Mina Kaji, and Christine Szabo
March 5, 2020, 1:55 PM

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., formally threw her hat in the ring on Feb. 9 to run, launching her campaign in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She called for an end to corruption and economic equality.

Out of the running: The progressive candidate who ran against corruption and pumped out more than 50 policy proposals during her campaign, suspended her presidential bid on March 5, on the heels of lackluster finishes on Super Tuesday -- including in her home state -- and in all four early states.

Name: Elizabeth Ann Warren

Party: Democrat

Date of birth: June 22, 1949

Hometown: Born in Oklahoma City

Family: Warren has two children -- Amelia and Alexander -- with her first husband, Jim Warren. Now, Warren lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband, Bruce Mann, and their golden retriever, Bailey. They have three grandchildren.

Education: Warren attended George Washington University, but ultimately graduated from the University of Houston in 1970. She worked as a special education teacher. In 1976, she graduated from the Rutgers School of Law.

What she does now: U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Elected in 2012. Serves on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, the Special Committee on Aging and the Committee on Armed Services.

What she used to do: Warren was a law professor for more than 30 years at Rutgers University, the University of Houston, University of Texas-Austin, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. She also served as chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel in 2008. Warren was an assistant to President Barack Obama and special adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury.

PHOTO: Professor Elizabeth Warren teaches an unspecified class at University of Pennsylvania Law School, Philadelphia, Pa., early 1990s.
Professor Elizabeth Warren teaches an unspecified class at University of Pennsylvania Law School, Philadelphia, Pa., early 1990s.
Leif Skoogfors/Corbis via Getty Images

Key life/career moments:

During the 2008 financial crisis, Warren served as chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. She was also at the forefront of the movement to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In 2016, Warren received attention for her interaction with Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf during a hearing about allegations that bank employees created accounts without customers' authorization. Warren told Stumpf: "You should resign. ... You should give back the money that you gained while this scam was going on, and you should be criminally investigated by the [Department of Justice] and the [Securities and Exchange Commission]."

In 2017, Warren read a 1986 letter in which Coretta Scott King criticized then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Warren was formally silenced by a vote prompted by her Republican colleagues. Warren later read the letter in a Facebook Live video, which currently has 13 million views.

In December, Warren became the first woman to launch a presidential exploratory committee for the 2020 race.

Where she stands on some of the issues:

Warren has publicly criticized big tech companies saying in a policy proposal that they "have too much power -- too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy." Through the policy, she would "unwind tech mergers that illegally undermine competition " -- citing Amazon for its takeover of Whole Foods, Facebook for its takeover of WhatsApp and Instagram, and Google's for its takeover of the mapping app Waze.

Warren also wants to eliminate tuition for two- and four-year public colleges and cancel student loan debt for millions of Americans. Her plan would create a one-time cost of $640 billion to the federal government and ultimately be paid for by an "Ultra-Millionaire Tax,"  an annual 2% tax on the estimated 75,000 families with $50 million or more in wealth.

Fundraising:

The Massachusetts Democrat announced she raised $19.1 million from March through June this year, outraising Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and falling short of South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden.

Warren's second quarter haul, which is more than three times the amount she raised in the first three months of this year, came from a total of 683,000 individual contributions from 384,000 grassroots donors, according to the campaign's email to supporters. More than 80% of the donations in the second quarter were from first-time donors to her presidential campaign. The average donation was $28, the same as the previous quarter.

The Massachusetts Democrat is going into the second half of this year with $19,7 million left in the campaign's war chest, competing with about $30 million in Sanders' campaign and $22.6 million in Buttigieg's campaign.

PHOTO: Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks before the start of a Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing for Kathy Kraninger, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in Washington, July 19, 2018.
Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks before the start of a Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing for Kathy Kraninger, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in Washington, July 19, 2018.
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE

What you might not know about her:

She was written about by fellow 2020 presidential candidate Harris in a 2017 piece for TIME.

She was Massachusetts' first female U.S. senator.

Warren's announcement elicited a response from President Donald Trump within hours. "Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate," Trump tweeted. "Or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore?"

ABC News' Kendall Karson and John Verhovek contributed to this report.