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After doing her signature “pinky promise” with a line of exiguous girls, nonetheless prior to taking the stage to bring her stump speech to the gang assembled in a center-college health membership in Concord, N.H., Elizabeth Warren sat in a butter-yellow learn room to mask what keeps her going.

Persistence has been the defining characteristic of the Massachusetts senator’s marketing campaign: the battle cry that made her a progressive icon, and the quality that would possibly perchance well perchance propel her through a long slog to the Democratic presidential nomination. In person, Warren is restful an Energizer Bunny of tips and optimism, with out a impress of dread at her scheme in the polls. Her marketing campaign has turn into a test case for what many effectively-professional liberals take care of to mediate: that Democrats are sane, that policy issues, and that if a tidy, qualified girl ravishing works laborious sufficient, she can be able to attain out on top.

However what happens, I requested, if Warren tells hundreds of exiguous girls that a girl will be President, nonetheless she doesn’t web herself? What does persistence mean without outcomes?

“Note,” Warren begins. She is restful for a long 2nd, leaning forward in her plastic chair with the intensity of someone who needs to make certain she can get this ravishing. “Now we must novel that we’re appealing to secure the danger,” she says slowly. “Because if we’re no longer, then girls will never web.”

As soon as a entrance-runner for the Democratic nomination, Warren’s marketing campaign is now up in opposition to the ropes. She came out of Iowa witha third-scheme enactin the aid of former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Bernie Sanders after spending nearly about a year constructing aformidable floor sportin the impart. She’s fallen as exiguous asfifthin perchance the most in fashion polls of New Hampshire, a neighboring impart that turn into anticipated to provide her some New England respect. Warren positioned herself asthe candidate with big plans, nonetheless her opinion to web the nomination doesn’t seem to be going the fashion she’d hoped. What turn into she going to achieve differently?

Warren doesn’t seem fazed. “You’re asking a political scheme query, and it’s an even query, nonetheless it surely’s no longer why I’m in this hump,” she says. “I hope we in finding this ravishing, spherical the scheme, nonetheless it surely’s no longer what I spend my time brooding about.”

The Warren marketing campaign prides itself on ignoring the horse hump, pushing apart what it calls “the pollercoaster” and staying inquisitive about Warren’s message of combating corruption in politics and ushering in structural commerce. Aides argue she has performed a higher job of consolidating the increase of prominent local Democratic elected leaders than her opponents. If the leisure, Warren looks to be to be doubling down on her predominant perception that politics is ready policy.

“As we’ve attach the plans collectively in greater ingredient, proven how we will pay for them, laid out paths for a scheme we can in finding them adopted, the commerce that we would possibly perchance well perchance compose turns into more precise to me, daily,” Warren says, pausing to press her forefinger and thumb collectively to emphasise the level. “I’m in a position to glance it more clearly. And I’m in a position to glance the impression it would possibly perchance perchance well perchance grasp on the folks who need a authorities on their aspect.” The comeback opinion, in numerous phrases, is to follow the plans.

However presidential races aren’t completely about who has the staunch plans. Narratives are significant, and to this level the Warren marketing campaign has struggled to mission a winning charisma. Warren’s stump speech is humorous and inspirational, nonetheless folks started streaming out of the health membership in Concord prior to she turn into performed taking questions. One speech in Derry, N.H., final week turn into paunchy of press and out-of-impart political vacationers. A source stop to the marketing campaign observes that her volunteer turnout has thinned in the old few weeks. Some allies exterior the marketing campaign, all nonetheless certain Warren will fall brief in New Hampshire, are 2nd-guessing her political positioning, tense she’s moved too some distance left to allure to moderates. “In her effort to secure Bernie, she misplaced deal of parents who are now with Buttigieg or Klobuchar,” says one, including that rural areas seem to be solidly with Sanders.

On the aid of the scenes, Warren advisers are girding for a long, drawn-out wrestle for the nomination. Three sources stop to Warren’s marketing campaign speak that her route forward is a version of unhurried-and-staunch wins the hump. If Warren can defend in a fixed 2nd or third scheme while her opponents upward push and fall, especially in big states take care of California and Texas, then she can be able to fetch delegates heading into the convention without necessarily racking up big first-scheme victories, the thinking goes. Placing out in 2nd scheme additionally lets the entrance-runners beat every numerous up, while she stays above the fray.

The promoting campaign believes it is some distance effectively-positioned for a long nationwide wrestle, having already dispatched more than 1,000 staffers across 31 states, with 80% inquisitive about grassroots organizing, primarily based on a January memo from marketing campaign supervisor Roger Lau. Not like some of her opponents, who grasp been laser-inquisitive about Iowa and New Hampshire, Warren has repeatedly taken the long eye in phrases of a nationwide marketing campaign. “Now we grasp the delegate scheme,” says communications director Kristen Orthman. “Which is how you web a nomination.”

However it surely’s ravishing to query how Warren can web the nomination without piling up some of those first-scheme finishes quickly. She’s sworn off big donors, which method she relies on the grassroots to fund her marketing campaign, and her flagging momentum threatens that money float. Within thefinal quarter of 2019,Warren raised ravishing over $21 million, a huge haul nonetheless some distance searching the $34.5 million raised by Sanders. The promoting campaign latelypulled roughly $375,000price of adverts in South Carolina and Nevada.

Tony Luong for TIME Guests secure photos of Elizabeth Warren at her Derry GOTV Event at the Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, NH on Feb. 6, 2020.

Within the intervening time, Warren’s opponents seem to be surging. On Monday, Sanders is scheduled to host a bunch a live efficiency with rock band The Strokes, featuring Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Less than an hour south of Warren’s speech in Concord on Sunday, Buttigieg drew a crowd of nearly about 2,000 folks. After a formidable debate efficiency, Klobuchar hassurged to third schemein the two most most in fashion New Hampshire polls.

However Warren’s mood looks no numerous than it did a pair of months ago. If the leisure, she looks evenmoreherself: easy smile, at ease enlighten, certain tips. Beating expectations, she says, is who she is. “I’ve been underestimated, counted out, suggested what I’m in a position to’t attain, ravishing unless I’ve gotten in the wrestle and in point of fact won it,” she says.

She tells me her “intensity will increase” after listening to from folks who had been rationing insulin on myth of they couldn’t manage to pay for it, and formulation to the two billionaires making an are attempting to “raise” the nomination as evidence of a damaged political system. “Occupy what which method for democracy,” she says. “Democracy, as we comprehend it, is breaking apart.”

I requested Warren why Buttigieg, 38, has zoomed forward in the nominating wrestle with a thinner resume and airier rhetoric. Warren did a exiguous little bit of 1-syllable reveal and wiped something below her glasses. “You’d must question but every other person that,” she says frivolously.

What if Sanders or Buttigieg won the nomination, and then adopted her plans? “Are you kidding? Wonderful!” she says. “I feel the query you’re asking me is, ‘If the issues you take care of to must in finding performed basically in finding performed, will your heart be damaged?’ And the reply is, ‘No! I’ll lead the parade!’”

“I ran for President no longer on myth of I’d been taking a be conscious at myself in the advise and announcing, ‘You’d compose a stupendous President,’” Warren continues. “However on myth of I mediate I’ve bought the staunch likelihood every to beat Donald Trump and to compose the modifications we desire to compose, beginning in January, 2021.”

With that, she bounds out of her seat and hustles out of the classroom against the stage.

Write toCharlotte Alter atcharlotte.alter@time.com.