Ms. Warren, whose campaign had perceived to be flailing over the past month underneath questions about her yankee Indian heritage, won 95.7 % of the vote of the three,500 delegates attending the state party convention here. as a result of the sole alternative Democrat running, Marisa DeFranco, did not capture fifteen % of the vote, Ms. DeFranco lost the prospect to mount a primary challenge.
No Democratic candidate had ever won over eighty six % of the vote within the thirty years of the state party’s endorsement method, and plenty of officers, together with John Walsh, the party chairman, said as late as Saturday morning that they expected Ms. Warren wouldn't do therefore either.
But she and her allies, together with Gov. Deval Patrick, lobbied the delegates intensively, arguing that a primary would solely divert Ms. Warren from the crucial task of specializing in Mr. Brown in what has become the marquee race within the country in determining management of the Senate.
Asked once the vote whether or not she had pushed Ms. DeFranco aside, Ms. Warren told reporters: “It’s not as if anybody pushed anybody off the ballot.” She added: “Today it had been operating each|for each} single vote every single minute.” She has assiduously courted the activists for months at party functions.
After the event, the Brown campaign held a news conference within the rainy sq. across the road from the cavernous convention hall. Peter Blute, a Republican and former congressman, said that Ms. Warren had “snuffed out” her opponent. The lopsided victory, he said, was “the terribly thorough slap-down of a candidate.” He said he expected questions about her ancestry to dog her as a result of she had shown a “pattern” of lacking credibility.
Ms. Warren had begun the day with some excellent news, with 2 new polls — by The Boston Globe and Western New England University — showing her running basically even with Mr. Brown.
In a feisty speech to the delegates before the vote, she invoked the spirit of Senator Edward M. Kennedy Jr., who continues to be lionized by activists here and whose death in 2009 led to the special election during which Mr. Brown captured the seat.
“It’s a protracted manner from Ted Kennedy to Scott Brown,” Ms. Warren said.
She additionally dismissed the controversy during which her campaign has been mired for over a month — whether or not she had unfairly claimed yankee Indian ancestry to advance her educational career.
“If that’s all you’ve got, Scott Brown, I’m ready,” she declared to the cheering crowd. “And let me be clear. i'm not backing down. I didn’t get during this race to fold up the primary time I got punched.”
“I’m ready,” Ms. Warren repeated to the delegates once the vote was announced. She asked them if they were additionally prepared — to require on Wall Street, massive oil and to “stop the Republicans from taking on the u. s. Senate.” a large cheer went up within the hall.
In recent days, Ms. Warren has taken a lot of aggressive steps to do to counteract the fallout from the ancestry issue and criticism of her campaign for failing to retort to the controversy a lot of quickly and absolutely. Governor Patrick, one in all the state’s most well liked politicians, broke his pledge to remain neutral within the Democratic contest and endorsed her many days ago.
She additionally began reaching out to individual reporters, showing a replacement defiance. On Friday night, she created the requisite rounds of preconvention parties here packed with the activists whose enthusiasm she is going to ought to get out the vote in November. “I don’t care what they throw at me,” Ms. Warren said in a very close to shout to those gathered in Theodore’s blues club. “I can stand my ground.”
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