Warren not worried about polls: ‘It’s early.. I’m running the campaign that I want to run’

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Elizabeth Warren wants to change the Constitution, end the Electoral College

DURHAM, NH –  Sen. Elizabeth Warren is producing one policy proposal after another and she’s drawing healthy crowds as she relentlessly crisscrosses the presidential campaign trail.

But the Democratic White House hopeful from Massachusetts isn’t popping in the polls.

WARREN'S $6 MILLION FUNDRAISING HAUL FAR BEHIND SANDERS

Pointing to the calendar – there are still 10 months to go until the first primary votes are cast - Warren says she’s not worried.

“It’s early and I'm running the campaign that I want to run,” Warren said when asked by Fox News if she was concerned about her poll position.

“I love this,” she said as she professed her love for meeting and taking questions from voters on the campaign trail. “There’s no place I’d rather be today.”

The populist senator who’s a champion to progressives is hovering in the mid-to-upper single digits in most public opinion polls in the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination race. That puts her alongside a pack of rivals, trailing former Vice President Joe Biden – who’s all but certain to launch his campaign in the next couple of weeks – and  Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – another rock star on the left.

Warren came quickly out of the gate after launching a presidential exploratory committee on Dec. 31. She grabbed tons of media attention and large crowds in the first weeks of her campaign. She formally announced her candidacy at a big event in Lawrence, Massachusetts in February.

WATCH THE BERNIE SANDERS TOWN HALL ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL ON MONDAY AT 6:30 PM ET. 

But since then, Sanders soared after his mid-February announcement that he was running, as did former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who declared his candidacy a few weeks later. Over the past month South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has gone from a long-shot for the nomination to a legitimate player.

Asked if her campaign is on course, Warren replied, “I’m happy.”

Warren took questions from Fox News and other news organizations following an event at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, her first stop in a jam-packed, two-day swing through the state that holds the first primary in the race for the White House.

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Warren became a household name thanks to her longtime fight against Wall Street and major corporations and she’s making fighting corruption and big money in politics two central themes in her presidential campaign.

Her latest policy proposal, unveiled Thursday, is a surtax on profits of the largest corporations, which she said would prevent corporate giants from exploiting loopholes to avoid federal taxation in the wake of the business tax cuts passed in 2017 by the then-GOP controlled Congress and signed into law by Republican President Donald Trump.

“What I propose is for every company that makes a public statement of $100 million or more in after-tax income in a single year have to pay seven percent in, so we can make investments in the rest of the country,” she told the crowd.

She touted that her corporate tax proposal, along with her plan to increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy, “would raise $4 trillion over the next ten years. What could we do with that. Think about what it would mean to reduce the student loan debt burden.”

Warren added that the revenues could also increase investments in universal childcare and pre-K, housing, infrastructure and make a down payment on a Green New Deal.

She touted that “folks with power and a lot of money don’t like some of my proposals. But I’ll tell you this, in the long run this is the only way we’re going to keep this economy and this country working.”

Warren claimed her plans would have bipartisan appeal.

She pointed to Amazon making more than $10 billion in profits last year and not paying any federal taxes, and argued that “it’s not OK with Democrats. It’s not OK with independents. It’s not OK with Republicans. It’s not OK…I don’t think it’s just Democrats we’re talking to. I think we’re talking to people all across this country.”

Asked why she produces policy proposals at a faster rate than her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Warren explained that “policy is optimism.”

Warren arrived in New Hampshire hours after the president confirmed reports that he’s considering releasing detained immigrants into so-called sanctuary cities, apparently in part to retaliate against Democrats who oppose his push to extend the wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

She targeted the president, saying “this is President Trump playing politics with people’s lives and do his best to distract people from the fact that his administration is not working for them. That the things he promised are not happening. And he hopes that if can stir up a little more hatred and division, that maybe people won’t notice and he’s wrong.”

The Republican National Committee targeted Warren, calling her White House run “mediocre.”

“Even Elizabeth Warren knows her platform of government-run healthcare, free college and the Green New Deal are too costly and unrealistic, which is why she keeps proposing new tax hikes to try and offset their trillions of dollars cost,” RNC spokesperson Mandi Merritt said.

Asked what she would do with the immigrants detained trying to cross the border into the country, she said “for openers, we should be helping people in Central America so that mommas who are threatened by gangs don’t feel like they have to wrap up their babies in the middle of the night and run. We need to continue our aid and help stabilize the governments down there. That’s how we prevent crisis. That’s what makes sense in these circumstances.”