Sen. Elizabeth Warren got slightly choked up Thursday afternoon after suspending her Democratic presidential campaign, when she was asked what it had been like to vote for herself earlier in the week. During a press conference outside her home in Cambridge, the Massachusetts senator described the moment almost like a scene from “The Wizard of Oz.”

“I stood at that voting booth and I saw my name on the ballot and I thought, ‘Wow, kiddo, you’re not in Oklahoma anymore,'” Warren said.

From the Cambridge voting booth, her mind returned back to her family in Oklahoma, including her parents, who both passed away in the 1990s.


“It really was a moment of thinking about how my mother and dad, if they were still here, would feel about this,” Warren said, adding that she had gotten a lengthy email from her nephew, an enthusiastic supporter who still lives in Oklahoma, about how “proud” he and his father were of her campaign and their plans to vote.

Warren’s three brothers still live in Oklahoma. And as a self-described Okie, Warren often talked on the campaign trail about her family’s time “on the ragged edge of the middle class.”

“For that moment standing in the booth, I missed my mom and my daddy,” she added.

An emotional Warren also said she was missing her mom and dad this week. “Wow, kiddo. You’re not in Oklahoma anymore,” she thought when she saw her name on the ballot. “For that moment standing in the booth, I missed my mom and my dad.” pic.twitter.com/erV0M7qisk — MJ Lee (@mj_lee) March 5, 2020

The 70-year-old senator noted Thursday that it was only 10 years ago that she was still a professor “a few blocks from here” at Harvard Law School, “talking about what’s broken in America and ideas for how to fix it.”

“And pretty much nobody wanted to hear it,” she said.

Warren said her presidential bid had given her the chance to talk with “millions” of people and — as she said during a phone call to staffer earlier in the day — contended that her campaign had affected the substance of the national conversation — amplifying ideas like a wealth tax, universal childcare, student loan forgiveness, and boosting Social Security benefits.


“Those are life-changing events for people, and we can actually do this,” Warren said.

Even if so, it now seems it won’t be with her as president. Warren dropped out of the primary race after a worse-than-expected showing in the Super Tuesday primary elections. Through 18 state contests, she failed to finish better than third, including in her home state of Massachusetts. And while Warren said she had no plans to immediately endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, she said she would continue fighting for her policy agenda.

“However we talk about this, there’s still a trillion and a half dollars of student loan debt outstanding; there’s still tens of millions of people across this country, who one bad medical diagnosis and they’re upside-down financially; there are still mommas and daddies across this country who can’t finish their education, can’t take on jobs, because they can’t find access to decent childcare that they can afford,” Warren said.

“I had to think a lot about where is the best place to go to keep fighting those fights, because those problems don’t disappear when I stand here in front of you,” she added. “Those problems go on.”