LIVE from Seattle Center: Elizabeth Warren supporters pack the Armory for marquee rally

Good evening from the Emer­ald City!

NPI is live at the Seat­tle Cen­ter Armory for Eliz­a­beth War­ren’s first Wash­ing­ton cam­paign ral­ly of the 2020 cal­en­dar year. Her last appear­ance in Seat­tle, an August 2019 ral­ly, attract­ed 15,000 sup­port­ers and it was report­ed many in the crowd wait­ed in line after­ward for her well-known “self­ies” for over four hours.

The line to enter today’s ral­ly was already packed down the block almost two hours before the adver­tised 6 PM speak­ing pro­gram start time.

Sup­port­ers of all ages and eth­nic­i­ties stand wait­ing, gath­ered in front of a stage dec­o­rat­ed with an Amer­i­can flag back­drop. Oth­ers wait in the back the Armory where some lucky onlook­ers scored the lim­it­ed seating.

Ear­li­er this after­noon, NPI inter­viewed War­ren sup­port­ers on the way to the ral­ly, many of whom voice their enthu­si­asm for the Sen­a­tor’s candidacy.

“We’re all in for women lead­er­ship,” said one supporter.

“She’s got plans. She’s got intel­lect. She knows how to get things done.”

Anoth­er not­ed that it’s shame­ful that the Unit­ed States has not elect­ed a woman pres­i­dent yet, even though women gained the right to vote a hun­dred years ago.

When asked about War­ren’s recent debate per­for­mance, they all agreed the Sen­a­tor had shone more than the oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic candidates.

“She killed it,” one said, not­ing that it rein­vig­o­rat­ed her sup­port for War­ren over Bernie Sanders and War­ren’s oth­er rivals for the nomination.

Some sup­port­ers we spoke with are return­ing for the sec­ond time for an Eliz­a­beth War­ren ral­ly, hav­ing been to the August event.

When asked what they believe sets War­ren apart from oth­er can­di­dates, one sup­port­er it says it’s her plans. (War­ren had a viral moment dur­ing the sum­mer after reply­ing “I have a plan” to a ques­tion on Amer­i­ca’s wealth gap. Her cam­paign ran with it and it has become one of her main slogans.)

One sup­port­er fol­lowed that by men­tion­ing War­ren’s work to cre­ate the Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion Bureau after the finan­cial crash. “She cares about mak­ing sure peo­ple aren’t tak­en advan­tage of. Nobody else seems to actu­al­ly do things.”

Anoth­er ral­ly­go­er wait­ing for the bus told NPI that “before pol­i­tics was even on [War­ren’s] mind, she was doing the work.”

“She’s real­ly great about reach­ing out to peo­ple where they are, even if they’re not as left as she is, and edu­cat­ing them in a way that wel­comes them in.”

One sup­port­er said she was still try­ing to decide if she would cast her vote for War­ren in the pri­ma­ry, and she was hop­ing the ral­ly may help her find clarity.

She not­ed that she was most like­ly vot­ing for Warren.

“I’m look­ing for that per­son who says ‘I val­ue you, and your chil­dren and your grand­chil­dren’ as much as them­selves and their fam­i­ly,” she said.

The antic­i­pa­tion is build­ing, made clear by the cho­rus of cheers as a cam­paign staffer walked briefly onto the stage. Clas­sic, like Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” and Nan­cy Sina­tra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walk­ing” are playing.

When Neil Dia­mond’s beloved “Sweet Car­o­line” came on, many in the audi­ence enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly sang along and waved their arms.

More sup­port­ers are fill­ing up the loft as space below in front of the main stage dis­ap­pears. The Armory only has a capac­i­ty of a cou­ple thou­sand peo­ple, so not every­one who wants to see War­ren may get in.

Stay with us as we con­tin­ue to cov­er the War­ren cam­paign’s Feb­ru­ary 22nd Seat­tle Cen­ter ral­ly, live from the Armory under­neath the Space Needle.