Thanks. Please check your Inbox to confirm.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is climbing in the polls in the Democratic race for President. But she brushed aside one staple of top candidates: high dollar fundraising.

Like most other Democrats, Senator Elizabeth Warren blamed the “rich and well connected” for problems from high prescription drug prices to predatory loans. Giving up money on them reinforces the image she has built since the start of her political career – one who will fight for everyday Americans.

“This is a really powerful message to the American people about who Elizabeth Warren will fight for as President,” said Tiffany Mueller, President of the left-leaning campaign Finance advocacy group End Citizens United. “She builds and feeds her campaigns from small dollar donors who often become part of her activist base and her volunteer base.”

Democratic candidates across the country have taken on campaign finance reforms in recent years, and in particular how they run their own races, Muller said. In 2018, a record-number 48 candidates who did not accept money from corporate political action committees were elected to the House and Senate. In the race to be the party’s 2020 presidential nominee, the Democratic National Committee has put a greater emphasis on small donors, in part by requiring candidates to reach a certain number of individual donors to qualify for debates. And all Democratic presidential candidates still in the race have chosen not to accept money from single candidate super PACs, which funnel money almost exclusively to one candidate.

But what makes Warren’s decision to reject wealthy donors notable is that she also rejects the big-money courtship that comes with being on the path to a candidate’s party.

READ MORE: Warren and Sanders are banking on small donors. Will it pay off?

On the trail, Warren has made rules about what kinds of donations her campaign will accept in an effort to stand out from her primary opponents. She doesn’t attend any big-money fundraisers for her campaign (neither does Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders). Her campaign will reject contributions of more than $200 from “executives” of tech companies, hedge funds, private equity firms and big banks. She calls on her competitors to disclose the names of campaign bundlers, and the dates and locations of fundraisers. She’s also released a new policy that calls for an overhaul of campaign finance rules, including decreasing the individual contribution limit from $2,800 to $1,000.

“I think democratic voters should have the right to know how our party’s possible future leaders spend their time and who their campaign rewards,” Warren wrote in a post outlining the new policy.

Warren has so far proved that she can raise huge sums from small donors. In its most recent financial filings, it boasted the second – largest haul – nearly $ 25 million-putting it just behind Sanders ‘ $ 25.3 million.

It boasts nearly $ 26 million in cash on hand, which will be crucial in the competitive months ahead of the Iowa Caucuses as other candidates try to hold onto their cash reserves.

Mueller said the fundraising pass allowed Warren to “campaign in a different way” and talk to people, not just ” big donors.”

Polk County, Iowa Democratic party Chairman Sean Bagniewski has seen that dynamic play out locally too.

He made the decision to stop relying heavily on big donors, and instead encouraged people to donate to the party through the Democratic online fundraising website ActBlue.

Before making changes, Bagniewski said that the flow of money was unreliable. “If it was a bad financial climate, or if there was a recession the County parties would suffer because you are dependent on just a couple of people.”

More seriously, Bagniewski said another consequence of the decline in reliance on wealthy donors has been a significantly larger pool of donors and volunteers who donate – either their time or money-to down ballot races, something from which Warren campaigns have also benefited.

On the ground in Iowa, Bagneiwski sees Warren’s strategy working in real time.

At the Polk County Steak Fry in August, he said that hours after her speech, when other candidates can jump on the phone with donors, Warren instead had one of her signature “selfie lines” for two hours.

Without wasting time on the phone soliciting donors, she has time to meet face-to-face with voters, he said.

In a sense, it’s a return to the country’s political roots. Big-pocket donors are a relatively new phenomenon in American politics, Dan Weiner, senior counsel for the nonpartisan Brennan center for democracy program said.

“Ronald Reagan was re-elected in a landslide in 1984. He hasn’t held a single fundraiser,” Weiner said. “He had the benefit of a functional presidential system of public funding.”

Expensive TV ads and social media operations have made campaigns more expensive. Recent Supreme court decisions have also allowed corporations to spend money supporting candidates by raising the stakes. Finally, the high cost of campaigning has led presidential campaigns to stop using government funding, leading to greater reliance on big donors, according to Weiner.

READ MORE: Why New Hampshire could be the jump ball of the 2020 primaries

There are some signs that politicians and voters are beginning to reject the status quo. Recent financial reports show that 22 freshman house Democrats who represent battleground districts raised at least $ 400,000 in third-quarter fundraising this year without taking corporate PAC money. One of them, Rep. Katie porter, D-Calif., raised a million dollars from 26,000 individual donors

And, a recent poll commissioned by End Citizens United shows 67 percent of voters in the battleground state say limiting the influence of money in politics is a top, or top priority.

Warren’s move ” expresses an aspiration that is used to the common that we do not want the presidency to be tarnished even by the appearance of being the courage of major donors,” Weiner said.

But it’s hard to ignore that the system remains the same for at least the 2020 election, which means Warren’s approach could be flawed.

Rufus Gifford, who served as Finance Director of the Democratic National Committee and led President Barack Obama’s 2012 re – election Finance team, says Warren is making a mistake-not just for his campaign, but for the entire Democratic party.

He says his biggest concern is that if Warren is the nominee, she won’t be able to compete with trump’s huge fundraising apparatus.

“In a General election, the stakes are too high. It’s not just about you and your primary candidates and winning Iowa and new Hampshire, it’s about the whole country, ” Gifford said in an interview. “Every Democrat hangs their hopes on you.”

While Warren has vowed to leave fundraising for her campaign, her campaign has clarified that she will attend fundraisers for the DNC and state parties. Warren headlined a DNC fundraiser Wednesday alongside 2020 rival and former Vice President Joe Biden. A $ 50,000 donation brings donors to the table at a reception attended by Democratic party leaders like House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Situations like these will become more frequent as election day approaches, Gifford said, making it difficult to build a firewall between the campaign and the party. In 2012, for example, Gifford was Finance Director for Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, as well as de facto for the DNC and state party budgets.

“There has to be a marriage in terms of locality, politically as well as financially,” he said.

Thanks. Please check your Inbox to confirm.

Thanks. Please check your Inbox to confirm.