Elizabeth Warren holds town hall at Bowling Acres

“Are you ready to roll a few?” joked Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as she strode across the wooden lanes of Bowling Acres in Peterborough to address the 200 or so who jammed the bowling alley to hear the Democratic presidential hopeful speak and take questions from the audience on a snowy Friday afternoon.

Warren had the audience thundering like so many candlepins as she rolled through her stump speech, promising big structural change, equality and a fair shake for working families via a two-cent wealth tax, Green New Deal and corporate accountability. 
“What happens in 2020 really matters,” Warren said. “Not just for the next two years or four years or eight years – this is the direction our country takes for generations to come, and maybe whether or not our world even survives.”

Warren, the New Hampshire frontrunner in early polling, has lagged in recent weeks with the Feb. 11, 2020 fast approaching, but is still ensconced in the top tier; a recent poll showed her tied with Joe Biden and behind Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders in the Granite State, which went overwhelmingly for Sanders in the 2016 primary.

Ella McCullough, 17, of Peterborough, will be a first-time voter in  February’s primary, and she was impressed with what Warren had to say.

“As someone who is going to be taking part in this election and actually going to be able to vote, to me, it’s really important that I find a candidate who I know is going to advocate for things that I see that need changing,” McCullough said. “I’m also looking for someone, as a woman, that is going to advocate for me and allow me to make my own choices.” McCullough, who described herself as a feminist passionate about the environment, said Warren’s campaign is “inspiring,” though she’s still undecided between Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg.

Warren handled an audience question regarding the confusion surrounding her possible Native American heritage with aplomb, explaining that her family’s oral history led her to identify as Native American before she took a DNA test that proved otherwise. 

“It never had anything to do with any job I got or any benefit,” Warren said, “but even so, I shouldn’t have done it. I am not a person of color, I am not a citizen of a tribe, and I have apologized for confusion I’ve caused on tribal citizenship, tribal sovereignty, and for any harm that I’ve caused.”

A child in the audience identified as “Zeph” asked Warren about workplace discrimination for those in the LGBTQ community and others. “People can be fired just for being who they are,” the questioner marveled. Warren, who said she was fired from a teaching job in the early 1970s for being pregnant, has co-sponsored a number of bills protecting workers, including the recently proposed Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights Act.

“We need to pass a federal law to prohibit workplace discrimination against anyone because of their sexual identity or sexual orientation,” Warren said. “Give us enough Democrats in the Senate – and a president who’s a Democrat – and we can get this done, okay?”