Vice: Elizabeth Warren is running for president

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced Monday that she’s setting up a committee to explore a bid for the White House in 2020, making her the first Democrat to enter what is shaping up to be a very crowded field with no clear frontrunner.

Warren announced the move with an email to supporters that included a video framing her mission as taking on big banks and corporations and fighting for America’s middle class, themes that helped make her a progressive star in the wake of the financial crisis a decade ago.

“I’ve spent my career getting to the bottom of why America’s promise works for some families, but why other families, who work just as hard, slip through the cracks into disaster,” she said. “These are cracks America’s families are falling into, they’re traps. America’s middle class is under attack.”

In her video, Warren sought to put economic and racial inequality at the center of her message, and position government as the solution. “Our government is supposed to work for all of us but instead it has become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected,” she said.

By setting up an exploratory committee, Warren can raise money and hire campaign staff before formally declaring for president. She enters the race as perhaps the best-known candidate other than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former Vice President Joe Biden, both of whom are also thought to be weighing bids for president.

Warren enters the field more than 13 months before the Iowa caucuses and could soon be joined by fellow members of Congress, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), as well as business leaders like billionaire Tom Steyer and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg.

Warren hasn’t been afraid to mix it up with President Trump, both in her floor speeches and on Twitter. She controversially released the results of a DNA test earlier this year after criticism from Trump that she’d claimed Native American ancestry decades ago.