Warren bolsters Democratic party’s funding

Money-raising aids Shaheen, other candidates

By Noah Bierman

WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Warren has played the role of dutiful freshman in the Senate, careful to avoid upstaging veteran colleagues despite her high national profile and enthusiastic liberal followers. But outside the Capitol, her ability to raise money for Democrats is giving her standing beyond her newcomer status.

The Massachusetts lawmaker has raised $1.1 million for the party’s candidates and helped the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raise $1 million more, according to her aides. This year, with elections in November, she has said she will do more.

A breakdown of Warren’s fund-raising so far, provided by her political operation at the Globe’s request, shows she has spread her early efforts to nearly every Senate contest in the country — from blue states such as Illinois, where Richard Durbin has a relatively safe seat, to more conservative areas such as Louisiana, where Mary Landrieu faces a tough reelection battle and has tried to distance herself from her party’s liberal wing...Warren has helped 24 candidates, mostly in 2014 Senate races.

“It is absolutely critical that we keep a Democratic majority in the Senate,” Warren said in a recent interview, adding that retaining that majority is essential to her strategy of using committee hearings to rattle the cages of bureaucracy.

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