Elizabeth Warren’s standing as a liberal warrior immune to the influence of Big Business hasn’t stopped her from pushing the interests of major defense contractors back home.

Warren has fought to stop the Army from shifting funds away from a Massachusetts-built communications network to pay for unanticipated costs associated with the war in Afghanistan. She’s lobbied for problem-plagued General Dynamics-made tactical radios. And she’s pledged to protect Westover Air Reserve Base from the budget ax — all while saying she supports “targeted” cuts elsewhere.


It’s a delicate dance in a state where defense giant Raytheon is one of the largest employers and brings in billions of dollars each year in federal contracts.

The freshman Democrat from Massachusetts insists she’s not running for president, despite a movement to draft her. But if she did — and took on front-runner Hillary Clinton — she’d likely face scrutiny over the way she’s balanced her populist views with her sometimes-penchant for pursuing the well-worn practice of pork-barrel politics.

Warren didn’t respond to questions as she walked to a vote in the Capitol, and an aide referred POLITICO to the senator’s spokeswoman, Lacey Rose, who also didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. But the half-dozen industry insiders who were interviewed painted a picture of a senator who’s willing to advocate for local defense firms but has no relationship with the industry on a national level.

“I have seen the senator and her team take a very active role in defense matters in Massachusetts,” said Joseph Donovan, a Boston-based defense lobbyist with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough and a former aide to then-Gov. Mitt Romney. “I’ve been in roundtables that her office has organized with major defense contractors and small businesses.”

One local defense executive noted it’s no secret the industry in 2012 backed Warren’s Republican opponent, Army National Guard veteran Scott Brown, explaining that Brown’s seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee gave him a big platform to advocate for home-state contractors.

But the executive said Warren’s made an effort to reach out to defense companies, including visits to Raytheon and General Dynamics facilities in her state, and that “there’s certainly not an impression that she’s adversarial” to big-name contracting firms. “The folks that work in our industry are just as much her constituents as anybody else is,” said the executive, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

Raytheon, which is headquartered in Massachusetts, “has a positive relationship with Sen. Warren, and we interact with her and her staff regularly,” said company spokesman Michael Doble.

In her first year in the Senate, Warren joined other members of the Massachusetts delegation in fighting proposed cuts to the Army’s Warfighter Information Network-Tactical program, a battlefield communications network known as WIN-T that the Government Accountability Office has cited for unplanned cost increases and performance deficiencies. The Pentagon was seeking to shift $128 million away from the program to pay for Afghanistan war costs — a reprogramming request that was blocked by the congressional defense panels following a lobbying campaign orchestrated by General Dynamics.

Warren’s support was “crucial to that program,” Donovan said.

Another defense executive told POLITICO at the time that her advocacy for WIN-T was “a big deal” given the fact that the industry was skeptical of her commitment to helping out home-state defense firms. It was “a very good step in the right direction,” said the executive, also requesting anonymity to offer his candid thoughts on the senator.

General Dynamics spokeswoman Lucy Ryan said Warren “has supported programs that are important” to the company, pointing to WIN-T and the Littoral Combat Ship, which has suppliers in the state. Warren has also lobbied for another GD program: Army Manpack radios.

In a 2013 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, she and then-Sen. Mo Cowan, a fellow Democrat from Massachusetts, said the radios “represent technology and acquisition success stories” — despite the poor grades they’d received in combat tests and a controversial acquisition strategy that allowed just two vendors during the low-rate production stage: General Dynamics and Rockwell Collins.

Nonetheless, Warren and Cowan touted the program’s “dual manufacturing strategy” that “ensures that competition and flexibility are built into the program.” But the strategy actually restricted competition, and Pentagon leaders pressured the Army to revise it last year to allow more than just those two companies to compete during the full-rate production stage.

The Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, in a report delivered to Congress last month, found the long-troubled radios “not operationally suitable.”

On a national level, Warren has had little involvement with the defense industry.

“I don’t think she’s even on our radar,” said one Washington-based defense lobbyist. “In my meetings with all my major defense clients, her name just doesn’t come up.”

During the 2012 election, defense firms contributed more than $366,000 to Brown through their political action committees and employees — making him the top Senate recipient of industry dollars that cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Warren’s campaign got a tiny fraction of that from the industry.

And her campaign and leadership PACs have received very few defense industry contributions since then, according to data filed with the Federal Election Commission — something that’s not unusual for a senator who’s not up for reelection and doesn’t have any defense-related committee assignments.

For Warren, the tension between her populist views and the needs of her state extends to other areas, as well.

The senator, long a staunch advocate for stronger financial regulations, has faced stinging criticism for pushing proposals viewed as giveaways to the medical device industry, which has a big presence in Massachusetts. She’s spoken out against the new Obamacare tax on medical devices that’s been targeted by Republicans, as POLITICO has previously reported.

Warren is also an advocate for Massachusetts military bases — something many members of Congress do for their local installations, regardless of their views or party.

Warren has visited Westover Air Reserve Base and other Massachusetts facilities — and has vowed to protect Westover from defense budget cuts. This comes amid an effort by the Pentagon to close excess domestic military bases — a plan that’s been repeatedly rejected by Congress but has spurred states to invest in renovation projects to make sure their military facilities would be well positioned to survive future rounds of base closures.

“Massachusetts helps keep our country safe,” Warren said in a 2013 op-ed in The Taunton Daily Gazette. “The work that goes on at bases and by defense contractors throughout the commonwealth is a great example of how investments in research and development can help ensure our nation’s military is ready and able to meet current and emerging needs while also supporting our state’s economy.

“Defense spending,” she added, “should always align with our strategic priorities.”