VIA CAP TIMES

Democratic heavyweight and one-time presidential frontrunner Elizabeth Warren headlined a fundraiser for Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who is seeking his party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, in Madison on Friday.

The stop at Garver Feed Mill from the U.S. senator from Massachusetts was one of three events she headlined for Barnes over the weekend, a pair on Friday and a third event in Milwaukee early Saturday afternoon.

Warren billed Barnes as the person to fight back against the Republican agenda, saying he would be one of the two additional progressive senators needed to abolish the filibuster, a Senate procedural rule that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation, and accomplish real Democratic goals.

“We have problems like Roe v. Wade — a Supreme Court that wants to make second class citizens out of half the population,” Warren told the crowd. “A Supreme Court that wants to take us back to a time when women’s bodies were controlled by men, who decided what they could and could not do.”

Warren said with Barnes in the Senate, Democrats would be able to codify the protections guaranteed by Roe.

The Massachusetts progressive also had sharp words for U.S. Sen Ron Johnson, Barnes’ would-be general election opponent if he wins the Democratic nomination.

Warren said backing Barnes in the primary was “the first step to dump one of the Senate’s most extreme members, Ron Johnson.” Her comments were met with a roar from the crowd.

She also barbed Johnson for calling the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol a largely “peaceful protest.”