On Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that she would not run for president in 2016 despite widespread speculation that she would run to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s left in the primaries. She said at a press conference in Boston, “I’m not running for president and I plan to serve out my term…I am not running for president. I am working as hard as I can to be the best possible senator I can be.”
Warren explicitly avoided any questions with regard to Clinton. “It’s not how pundits want to describe different parts of the process,” she stated. “The way I see it right now is about the changes we need to make. It’s how we build a future going forward.”
Warren’s statements leave an opening for a leftist candidate against Clinton. Speculation has included possibilities ranging from former Vermont governor Howard Dean to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA).