GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — The race for president in 2020 is already rumbling into Georgia with the arrival of Senator Elizabeth Warren in metro Atlanta on Saturday.
The presidential hopeful from Massachusetts spoke before a crowd of about 1,100 people at Central Gwinnett High School and took questions from Georgia voters.
The packed house listed to Warren insist that she is strong enough to go up against President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election – and that she would be a champion of the working class once in office.
The event served as a chance for many Gwinnett voters to meet the candidate and decide for themselves if she fit the bill. And many appeared to be convinced she does.
“I like Elizabeth Warren,” Lyrna, who attended the event, said. “I think she has a good heart. I think she can help us all.”
The event also brought out some protests - though they were put to a halt pretty quickly.
Warren opened by giving a glimpse of growing up in Oklahoma with a mother who was forced to be the breadwinner when her father nearly died.
“That minimum wage job … saved our house and it saved our family,” Warren said.
And she certainly didn’t hold back any punches in her comments about President Trump.
“Everybody who wants to run for federal office, you got to put your taxes on the line,” she said.
She credited former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams for making Georgia a political game-changer.
“I came to Georgia for Stacey because I just think the world of her and I think the whole notion that she fired people up – she got them to the polls and somehow those votes didn’t get counted – I don’t think that’s how democracy is supposed to work,” she said.
Another point she made that resonated with the crowd was the homeownership gap between whites and minorities. Warren said she would fight to change that.