Elizabeth Warren Is Sitting on a Whole Lot of Money

During her first five years in the Senate, Elizabeth Warren had a heads-down attitude, Democrats close to her tell Politico in a piece about the "conscious break" that has followed. It reports on what it characterizes as "under-the-radar" moves that could be greasing the wheels for 2020. Chief among them is a near record-setting amount of money. She has $12.8 million at her disposal, an amount of campaign cash that exceeds that of almost any other incumbent senator at this stage of the election cycle—and the fight for her Senate seat isn't expected to be a tough one. More on Warren, 2020, and, more pressing, 2018:

• On the will-she-or-won't-she front: Politico notes that she has turned down invites to appear in Iowa and New Hampshire, but she has been taking some key meetings (think JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Joe Biden, Barack Obama), appeared in battleground states, and has researchers reviewing her background for "political vulnerabilities."
• As for that cash: MassLive provides some recent context, citing Federal Election Commission data that totals senators' fundraising since 2013. New Alabama Sen. Doug Jones raised $23.6 million since then to Warren's $21 million, with Ted Cruz in third at $14.9 million. But the men currently have about $5 million on hand, to Warren's $12.8 million.

• More on 2020: Politico isn't the only site reporting on potential 2020 aspirations. In a lengthy piece on the "invisible primary," NBC News reports that this year will see many 2020 hopefuls campaign on behalf of 2018 candidates as part of a "time-tested" move in which they can get in front of voters, refine their message, cozy up to the party, and broaden their donor base. It calls out Joe Biden; Sens. Warren, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris; mayors Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, and Pete Buttigieg of South Bend; and New Yorkers Bill De Blasio and Andrew Cuomo, among others.
• And about 2018: On the three prior occasions (1994, 2006, 2010) when a party went into the midterms holding both the House and Senate, they didn't exit with control of both. CNN digs deep into the approval ratings of the sitting presidents at the time (Clinton, Bush, Obama) and stacks theirs against President Trump's. "The ominous precedent for Republicans is that Trump's standing with the public now is weaker than each of those predecessors' was when their party lost unified control during midterm elections."
• Place your bets: "Is it too early to handicap the 2018 elections?" asks Albert R. Hunt at Bloomberg. "No!" he decides. He looks at the House, Senate, governors, and statehouses here.
• Blah, blah, blah midterms: If the words "2018 midterms" make you totally zone out, Vox is here to spell out exactly why they are consequential. It outlines five reasons why the midterms matter, and one of them will affect us through 2030.

(More Elizabeth Warren stories.)