Elizabeth Warren believes an all-women Democratic presidential ticket can beat Donald Trump next year.

The Massachusetts senator made her views plain in an interview with the Associated Press in Charleston, South Carolina, on Sunday.

“Sure, why not?” she said. “I think [voters] would support a lot of different combinations.”

Warren was speaking in the week the California senator Kamala Harris, formerly seen as a strong candidate for the nomination, dropped out of the race.

Warren has fallen back a little in polling but remains in a clear top four, with former vice-president Joe Biden, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

“Look, it would be presumptuous of me to be talking about individuals, but I’m open to getting this right because that’s what we want to do,” Warren told the AP when asked about her theoretical choice of running mate, a little less than two months out from the Iowa caucuses.

We want to build a Democratic ticket and a stronger Democratic party that’s ready to get out there and compete

“We want to build a Democratic ticket and a stronger Democratic party that’s ready to get out there and compete at the national level, at the state level, at the local level.”

Some suggest another woman would be a mistake, given Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Trump in 2016. The AP said Warren “argued that women notched historic wins during the 2018 midterms, suggesting voters are worried less about gender than the message candidates are offering”.

The senator has said she would consider Harris as a potential running mate. Many in the party favour Stacey Abrams, now campaigning for voting rights after narrowly losing the gubernatorial election in Georgia last year.

Warren also told the AP she would be “open” to considering Biden for the role he played under Barack Obama.

In an interview with Axios also released on Sunday, Biden said he would be open to considering Warren.

Biden said he would want someone “who knows that you and he or she are totally simpatico in terms of your ideology, where you want to take the country, your vision for the country, and you have to be able to turn over significant responsibility to them.”

Ideologically speaking, that would seem to count out Warren, who differs with Biden significantly in many policy areas, most conclusively healthcare.

But the former VP acknowledged it would be valuable for the Democrats to have a woman or a person of colour on their ticket.

“I’d add Senator Warren to the list,” he said. “I’d add all. But she’s going to be very angry at my having said that ... The question is would she add me made to her list. You know.”

Now he knows.

Regarding the actual campaign, Warren told the AP she was not concerned about Biden’s strong position in South Carolina, a key early voting state, and with African American voters in general.

She also criticised the billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg over his late entry and said the party needed to attract disillusioned Republican voters.

“We’re going to need as many Democrats as we can to build up our turnout,” she said, “and we’re also going to need some Republicans to help us, some Republican women, some Republican men, who are turned off by how Donald Trump behaves.

“I think we’ve got a path to victory, and I think the energy and enthusiasm of women is really what’s going to carry us across the finish line with a good margin.”

Women, Warren said, will “not only help us win the White House but, just as has been happening, help us win up and down the ticket”.

Warren seems confident she can head that ticket. In a column published by the Guardian on Sunday, she took Trump to task for his “reckless” behaviour on the world stage, particularly at the Nato summit in London last week.

“A mounting list of global challenges demand US leadership and collective action,” she wrote. “As president, I will recommit to our alliances – diplomatically, militarily and economically.”