Big donors urge Warren to run Behind closed doors, liberal donors are urging Warren to go for it.

Elizabeth Warren insists she has no interest in running for president in 2016, but the rich liberals to whom she spoke Thursday afternoon seemed unwilling to take ‘no’ for an answer.

The Massachusetts senator got a rock stars’ welcome during a closed-door speech to major donors, one of whom interrupted her by yelling “Run, Liz, Run!”


Warren drew multiple standing ovations during her talk, held in a banquet room at Washington’s Mandarin Oriental hotel during the annual winter meeting of the Democracy Alliance, a club of major liberal donors.

( Also on POLITICO: Warren to the rescue)

Throughout the day, donors repeatedly broached the question of whether Warren would run to Paul Egerman, a Democracy Alliance board member who was the national finance chairman of her Senate race and introduced Warren for her speech Thursday. He patiently but firmly told each that she would not seek the Democratic presidential nomination.

That didn’t stop a donor from asking Warren herself with the first question during a question-and-answer session following her speech, according to a Democracy Alliance source who was in the room. She also answered definitively in the negative, said the source.

Yet the continued interest in a Warren 2016 campaign from the ranks of the Democracy Alliance could, at the least, hint at trouble for Hillary Clinton, the presumed Democratic front-runner, when it comes to winning over liberal donors and activists.

The Democracy Alliance has had an outsized influence in Democratic politics. It works to leverage its donors’ massive bank accounts to steer the party to the left on causes dear to liberals — including fighting to reduce economic inequality and the role of money in politics. Warren has emerged as a standard-bearer for those fights, and her address on Thursday dealt with economic inequality.

(Also on POLITICO: Harry Reid taps Elizabeth Warren as envoy to liberal groups)

Another attendee asked Warren after the speech why Senate Democrats didn’t aggressively push the liberal economic policies she champions.

“The fight is to frame the issues for the next few elections,” she said, according to the source in the room. “We have moved the Democrats over the last four years.”

Earlier Thursday, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid tapped Warren for a leadership position that will utilize her appeal by making her an official liaison to the liberal base. Reid is set to talk to donors Friday morning on the sidelines of the Mandarin Oriental conference at a session hosted by a group called iVote, which raises cash to try to elect Democratic secretaries of state. Reid’s office did not respond to a request for comment on his participation in the event.

The Democracy Alliance has suggested it is considering opening up some of its activities and funding recommendations to the media, but all of the sessions on Thursday were closed to the press.

( Also on POLITICO: Wall Street's reaction to Warren: So what?)

Democracy Alliance staff and private security retained by the club stood sentry outside the basement banquet room where Warren spoke, preventing reporters from getting too close. And she avoided the media gathered for the conference by utilizing a side door to enter and exit the room.

POLITICO caught up with her as she made her way to a car waiting outside. But she ignored a question about whether her appearance — a closed-door speech to major donors who write huge checks, sometimes anonymously, to influence the political process — conflicted with her public denunciations of the role of conservative big money in politics.

“Excuse me,” an aide said, blocking access to Warren as she slid into the front passenger seat.

Democracy Alliance partners, as the group calls its members, pay annual dues of $30,000 and are required to contribute a total of at least $200,000 a year to recommended groups. Since its inception in 2005, the club’s partners have combined to give more than $500 million to recommended groups, and they played a pivotal early role in boosting Barack Obama during his 2008 Democratic presidential primary bid against Clinton.

In addition to Warren, Vice President Joe Biden, who is considering challenging Clinton in the 2016 presidential primary, is set to appear Friday night at a Democracy Alliance gala at the Newseum with donors.

Clinton was not invited to any part of the Mandarin meeting, which some of her supporters interpreted as a snub. Democracy Alliance staff and board members rejected that characterization, asserting the meeting was about the future of the progressive movement generally, and not the 2016 presidential race specifically.

“I don’t think who speaks here and who does not speak here is illustrative of anything,” said David desJardins, an engineer who was one of the first 20 people hired by Google, and also was an early Obama backer. He said Clinton would be welcome to speak to the group anytime and called a POLITICO article highlighting the fact that she wasn’t invited this time “dumb.”

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Clinton would be considered the prohibitive frontrunner for the 2016 Democratic nomination if she entered the race, as she is widely expected to do. But Democracy Alliance members have expressed concerns that she would be insufficiently liberal on the issues dear to their hearts.

At the Mandarin, Democracy Alliance partners told POLITICO they’d like to see Clinton challenged in 2016 – even if it’s only to push her to become more aggressive on liberal issues – and several suggested that Warren should be the one to do it.

Her issues match up well with those of Democracy Alliance partners, said Boston philanthropist Charles Rodgers, who shrugged suggestively when asked if he’d support Warren over Clinton. “I am from Massachusetts,” said Rodgers, who co-owned a Watertown, Massachusetts, consulting firm and was an early Democracy Alliance partner.

“We love her,” real estate mogul Lawrence Hess said, when asked about a possible Warren presidential campaign.

Erica Sagrans, who runs a super PAC called Ready for Warren seeking to draft Warren into the race, spoke in the hotel lobby with multiple donors, including desJardins.

“There’s a lot of support here,” she said. “ Post-midterms, there are a lot of depressed Democrats. Warren gives them something to get excited about. I don’t have any doubt that if she were to run, tons of donors and activists would be behind her.”

To be sure, there were plenty of folks at the Mandarin who have supported Clinton, including some who argue that she and her more centrist bearing offer the brightest future for the Democratic Party.

Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden, who was a top adviser to Clinton’s 2008 campaign and has remained in the inner circle, is set to speak on a Friday morning panel entitled, “The Well-Funded Push by the Religious Right that Threatens the Progressive Movement.” She is highly regarded among DA members, who help fund her think tank, and she mingled in the hotel lobby bar on Thursday, but declined requests for comment.

Priorities USA, a super PAC that’s part of a robust Clinton shadow campaign that dwarfs anything supporters of Warren or other prospective candidates have built, threw a cocktail party late Wednesday night in a roped-off area of the Mandarin bar, which offers sweeping views of the Tidal Basin.

The hosts were a virtual all-star team of Democratic figures who are backing a prospective Clinton campaign and are helping lead Priorities USA — longtime strategist and Clinton loyalist Paul Begala, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina and conservative-turned-liberal attack dog David Brock. He oversees a fleet of non-profit groups that intend to be supportive of a Clinton 2016 campaign — the flagship of which, Media Matters, has long been blessed by the Democracy Alliance.

Priorities USA intends to raise big checks to air ads blistering Clinton’s presidential rivals – including possibly in the Democratic primary.

Some Clinton backers asserted a primary could actually help her by allowing her to hone her message and become battle tested.

“I’m for Hillary, so whatever is best to get her to the point where she can win, I’m for it,” said Jack Martin, a Democracy Alliance partner who is the Chief Executive Officer of the international consulting firm Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

Still other partners said Democrats would be wise to focus on the issues on which the party should concentrate before picking politicians who may or may not run for president.

“We got our butts kicked last week and until we get our stuff together it doesn’t matter,” said Democracy Alliance member Nick Hanauer, who was one of the first investors in Amazon.com and has warned of worsening inequality. “What matters more is for progressives to unite around an affirmative theory of growth that the American people can benefit from rather than just who we stick up.”

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a liberal firebrand who is also a Democracy Alliance partner, said the lusty response to Warren is what “normally what happens when she addresses this crowd.” But he added that it comes at a moment when Democrats should be embracing more populist and progressive policies like those Warren espouses, which he said should be the lesson of the party’s midterm thrashing.

“When someone like Sen. Pryor loses by 18 points and when someone like me wins by 11 points that should tell people something,” he said.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct Pryor’s name.