US Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken a step toward a presidential bid with the launch of a committee to explore her chances.
The move on Monday makes Warren the first prominent Democrat to announce ambitions to run in the 2020 election.
The 69-year-old, a member of the party's left wing, said as a politician she has always fought for middle class people and indicated that she would continue speaking out for workers who earn average wages, minorities and the rights of families if she becomes a presidential candidate.
"Every person in America should be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules, & take care of themselves & the people they love," Warren wrote in a statement on her website. "That's what I'm fighting for, & that's why I'm launching an exploratory committee for president."
Warren is likely to be among a large field of Democrats seeking the nomination, similar to the situation in 2016 in the Republican Party, which gave rise to the outsider candidacy of Donald Trump. The first round of primaries begin early in 2020 in Iowa.
Other potential candidates from the centre-left party are former vice president Joe Biden and independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who was beaten by Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016.
Several other senators, including Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Sherrod Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand, have been named as potential candidates.
US Representative Beto O'Rourke, who in November lost a bid to unseat Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, is also considered a possible candidate.
Speaking to reporters in Boston on Monday, Warren welcomed the "strong and growing" group of Democrats who have shown interest in running.
She also said her candidacy would be largely about taking on the rich and powerful and corporations, saying Washington only works well for "those who've got money to buy influence".
Warren, who won re-election in November to a second term in the Senate, has been the subject of jabs by Trump since she campaigned with Clinton during the 2016 presidential race.
In an interview with on Fox News Channel set to air on Monday night, Trump said he'd "love to run against her".
He has referred to Warren as "Pocahontas," a Native American woman who befriended settlers in the early 17th century near at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia.
Trump derided her again in October for releasing a DNA test she said supported her claim to Native American heritage.
The test showed that the vast majority of her ancestry is European, but supported the existence of a Native American ancestor from six to 10 generations ago.
Trump said on Fox that Warren "did very badly in proving that she was of Indian heritage," adding that her decision to release the DNA analysis "didn't work out too well".
Indeed, the move was widely panned by critics and Native American groups.
Warren largely danced around a question on whether she wishes she had handled the DNA test release any differently.
"I have put it all out there. It's there for anyone to see," Warren said. "But at the end of the day ... this election going forward is going to be about the tens of millions of families across this country who work hard, who play to the rules and who just time after time take one body blow after another."
With Associated Press
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