Warren draws midsize crowd, 'energized' supporters in Derry

DERRY, N.H. — On the weekend before the second debates, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren drew a crowd of 500-600 people for a town hall in Derry, New Hampshire, a suburb between Boston and Manchester along Interstate 93 that is the fourth largest city in the state.

The crowd — smaller than her audience of 850 people in Peterborough, New Hampshire on July 8 but still one of the larger showings of the summer for a Democratic candidate — settled into folding chairs in the gymnasium of a public middle school while large metal fans whirled in the background on the hot Saturday afternoon.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was introduced by a local public school teacher. She attended the town hall with her husband, Bruce Mann, and her golden retriever, Bailey.

Warren mostly repeated her stump speech from the town hall in Peterborough three weeks before, beginning with her childhood in Oklahoma and ending with her three-part agenda to fight corruption, make "structural change" in the economy and protect democracy from foreign hackers and state-level voter suppression laws. Her remarks, about four minutes shorter than the July 8 speech, did not include her story about struggling to find childcare as a young mother and calling her Aunt Bee, a moment that resonated with several supporters in Peterborough.

Lines about her mother's personal sacrifice after her father's heart attack — "That's what Americans do," she said — won the first rounds of applause of the speech. A long standing ovation followed her call for all candidates for federal office to release their tax returns online.

Elizabeth Bromm, a UMass-Lowell graduate student and Sandown, New Hampshire resident, said before the speech that she was attending her first political event since the 1996 reelection campaign of former President Bill Clinton. "I think it's very important to have women out there fighting," she said.

Bromm, who said she has been "heckled" for her liberal views over the years at church in her conservative hometown, said she was "so enthused" by the turnout for Warren in Derry. "I am just grateful to see that there's this many intelligent people in southern New Hampshire," she said.

Lisa Raynes of Derry said she supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, but pledged to vote for Warren in 2020. "She's real," she said. "She feels like a sister." In addition to bringing "such energy" into the race, she credited Warren for "cutting to the point differently" than Sanders and "getting to the base."

"I feel energized for the Democrats this time around," she said.

After delivering her stump speech, Warren answered three questions, chosen at random from raffle tickets. The first question asked the Massachusetts Senator how she plans to maintain "a healthy rivalry" with the other Democratic candidates "while strengthening the party as a whole."

Warren's answer offered a glimpse into her debate strategy on Tuesday night, when she largely avoided direct attacks but insinuated that her more moderate rivals lack a vision for the country. "I do not attack my fellow Democrats," she said. "I try to talk about my vision," she added, "cause I can tell you why I'm in this race."

The line previewed her most memorable moment from the second debates, a not-so-subtle criticism of former Maryland Congressman John Delaney. "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for," she said at the televised debates in Detroit.

Warren delivered her stump speech, which lasted slightly longer than 30 minutes, and took three questions by raffle number from the crowd in Derry for approximately 15 minutes.

The second and third questions asked about abortion and Social Security, respectively. Warren indicated that, as president, she would prioritize legislation to enshrine the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law. "We live in a democracy," she said. "About 3 out of every 4 people in America want to see Roe v. Wade upheld."

"When 3 out 4 Americans want to see Roe v. Wade protected, it is now time to introduce that bill in the House and the Senate and get out there and fight for it," Warren continued.

She also complained that "little adjustments" to Social Security "stopped in the late 1980s" and outlined her intentions to protect Social Security by raising the payroll cap. "We need to pull in more revenue and that means we need to gradually lift the cap on how much people pay into Social Security," she said.

With her "plan for everything," Raynes predicted that Warren would be "one of the few that goes forward" into the later rounds of the primary. Raynes hoped that Warren would "maintain this energy" and noted that the Massachusetts Senator seemed to be "relaxing" into her campaign.

John Tehan, a volunteer from Milford, Massachusetts who spent the morning knocking on doors in Nashua, New Hampshire with his wife, went further. "She's got the momentum right now, big time," he said. He added that he has canvassed for his home-state senator in the Granite State three times and was "more successful than the first week" in his most recent outing.

While Bromm indicated that she would happily vote for California Senator Kamala Harris or former Vice President Joe Biden in the general election, she said she was "personally hoping" for Warren to become the Democratic nominee. "I don't think her road is going to be easy at all, but she is strong," Bromm said. "If anyone can do it, she can."

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.