ELKHART, Indiana — The local county Democratic chairman marveled at what he was seeing.

White House hopeful’s Elizabeth Warren’s recent town hall in northern Indiana had ended, but most of the crowd was standing in an orderly line wrapped around the event space, invited to stick around to take a “selfie” on their own smartphone with the candidate.

The last person to get their photo wouldn’t make it to the front of the line for more than an hour, but most seemed OK with waiting for a photo — and a brief moment of chitchat — with one of the top contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“You can’t buy advertising like this,” remarked Chad Crabtree, the Elkhart County Democratic Party chairman, who guessed many in attendance would post their photos on social media. “A lot of these people might soon forget her speech, but they won’t ever forget taking the photo.”

Democratic U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) poses for selfies with voters after a campaign town hall at George Mason University May 16, 2019 in Fairfax, Virginia. Sen. Warren held a town hall to tell her plans for Americans and answer questions from voters.

Warren isn't the only 2020 candidate taking selfies, but the Massachusetts senator has set herself apart in the crowded field by making the photo line a signature part of her campaign events. Her campaign says she's already taken 35,000 selfies at town halls and other events since launching her campaign six months ago.

She has used her self-purported love for the selfie to drive home the point that, unlike some of her opponents, she is more interested in spending time with working Americans than wealthy donors. Warren early in her campaign promised not to hold high-dollar fundraisers.

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At a town hall in Chicago last week, she teed up her invitation to a crowd of 3,600 people to stay after the event by noting that some of her rivals were spending the evening with “people who are real enthusiastic: millionaires who can write big checks.”

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That same night, former Vice President Joe Biden was holding a pair of fundraisers at the homes of wealthy backers in the Bay Area.

“If anybody wants to, and I don’t think anybody will want to, we’ll do selfies after,” Warren teased.

It would take Warren three hours to accommodate all those who wanted a photo. That night she surpassed the 35,000 photo mark for her campaign.

Candidates embrace the selfie

In the age of smartphones, Facebook and Instagram, the candidate selfie has become almost a requirement in politics.

President Trump regularly obliges when he gets requests for selfies by U.S. troops during his travels and has been amenable to posing with well-wishers during his visits to his golf courses.

Another Democratic contender, Sen. Cory Booker, who was an early adopter of using social media to directly interact with his constituents, seems to relish the chance to snap selfies with voters who frequently post the shots on their social media accounts. At 6’2” with long arms, the New Jersey senator is especially adept at getting good angles to snap a shot.

Warren took to Twitter to tip her hat to Booker's selfie game after the two posed together with a young woman while campaigning last month in South Carolina.

"I love taking selfies — but @CoryBooker has longer arms!"

Biden makes 30 to 45 minutes to work the rope line at nearly every public event, according to his campaign, so supporters can get the chance snap photos and selfies with him.

And former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who deftly used social media to amplify his message during his failed 2018 Senate bid, has shown himself happy to oblige potential supporters wanting selfies — even when trying to wade his way through a mob.

But Warren has embraced what her campaign calls the “selfie” line — most of those getting their photos, in fact, hand their camera to a campaign aide that snaps the shot — with a fervor unlike any of her peers.

She says that the selfie line provides her an important, albeit brief, opportunities to hear directly from many voters about what they’re most concerned about.

It also doesn’t seem to hurt with wooing voters.

Carol Flowers, 59, Columbia City, Ind., took a day off of work and traveled about 90 minutes with her husband for the chance to see Warren in the flesh. She said getting the photo with her was icing on the cake.

“The chance to take a photo with someone who may be our first female president felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Flowers said.

Jan Laurent, 70, of Watseka, Illinois, and Mary Waltz, 69, of Kentland, Ind., got about 20 seconds with Warren in which they hugged the candidate, got their photo taken, and urged Warren to unveil a plan for solidifying Social Security benefits.

“Years ago, I got to shake the hand of Bobby Kennedy at a rally just before he was assassinated, and I’ve remembered that moment forever,” Laurent said. “I think I’ll remember this moment (with Warren) for the rest of my life.”

Former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden takes a selfie attendees during a campaign event on June 11, 2019 in Davenport, Iowa. Biden and over two dozen presidential candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump during the 2020 general election.

A chance for a real voter-candidate exchange

Voters who have stuck around long enough after events say the moment can be as meaningful for the chance to have a personal exchange as it is for getting a keepsake photo.

Kelsie Pittel, 26. and Megan Utter, 29, of Iowa City, were among people who stayed late at Biden’s June stop in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, to get their photo taken with the former vice president.

Pittel said she wanted thank Biden for coming out in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in 2012, and encourage him to be an even stronger advocate of the LGBT community if he's elected. She and Utter, 29, have been dating for three years and got engaged late last year.

“I think even though we kind of got marriage passed there’s still a lot of legislation that could be done,” said Pittel, who is considering Biden and a few other candidates for her vote.

Democratic presidential candidate former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) takes a selfie with a supporter during a campaign town hall at the Irish Cultural Center on April 28, 2019 in San Francisco, California. The rally is the second stop of his four-day California swing that include stops in Los Angeles and San Diego.

Obama, Clinton disdain for selfies

Some other prominent politicians, including former President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, haven’t hidden their disdain for the selfie.

In her 2016 memoir, Clinton wrote that the selfie had become an obstacle to in making meaningful connection with voters and felt “impersonal.”

“To be clear, if you see me in the world and want a selfie and I’m not on the phone or racing to get somewhere, I’ll be glad to take one with you,” Clinton wrote. “But I think selfies come at a cost. Let’s talk instead!”

Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton take selfies with campaign supporters after her speech at campaign rally at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal June 27, 2016, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

At his post-presidency’s foundation’s first summit in 2017, Obama went out of his way to tell participants that he was banning selfies with him and the former first lady Michelle Obama during the event.

"It may seem trivial, but it's not," Obama said at the event. "I say this because ... one of the weird things about becoming president is I found that people were no longer looking me in the eye and shaking my hand."

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In Warren’s photo lines, voters frequently slip her notes and cards. The Warren campaign occasionally records her reading some of the notes aloud and posts them on social media.

One supporter, a debt-saddled school teacher named Jennifer, slipped her a letter at a June rally in Oakland, Calif., urging her to push forward with a plan she’s floated for the government to payoff student loans for middle and low-income Americans.

In Detroit, a few weeks back, a 60-year-old resident named Tahir handed Warren a note in which he asked the senator to push the U.S. government to pay reparations to African Americans to help make amends for slavery — a move that the writer said was “the only thing that will remedy this legacy of oppression.”

Warren’s voice cracked as she read letters from the selfie line after a May event in Kermit, West Virginia, an area that’s been among the hardest hit in the country by the opioid epidemic.

“These are our brothers and sisters, and they need help and it’s up to all of us to say, ‘We’re in this fight together,” Warren said in a video of her reading the letters after the Kermit event that was posted on social media by the campaign. “I like being in Kermit. A lot of people told me, ‘You know, you’re in the reddest of the red here.’ I liked being here because it was a chance to talk to people about their lives.”

Contributing: Stephen Gruber-Miller of the Des Moines Register

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elizabeth Warren's 35,000 selfies aren't just for kicks; they're a campaign strategy