Elizabeth Warren listens to Americans that others ignore. She gets our vote | Opinion

We are less than a month away from the March 17 Florida presidential primary, and every day Floridians are being bombarded with ads and information about the candidates. They are also getting bombarded by fear, misinformation and rumors.

I want to keep it real.

Last November I participated in New Florida Majority’s first presidential endorsement. More than 100 member delegates from all over the state endorsed Elizabeth Warren in an act of democracy.

Since then, I have been tasked with answering the question “Why Warren?” The answer is simple: Elizabeth Warren embodies the type of public servant we want to see at every level of government.

She is a listener. Throughout the campaign she has shown she is willing to meet and listen with groups of people to often left out of the political conversation. She listens to returning citizens who’ve paid their debt to society, yet are still struggling to be fully embraced by the communities to which they’re returning. She listens to undocumented immigrants looking to our government to see their humanity as they struggle to navigate a broken immigration system. She listens to the child concerned about the air they breathe and the water they drink and questions whether politicians care about the future of this planet and how it affects them. She listens to black and Latina mothers and their concerns about their health, their children and their homes.

She definitely has a plan. One look at her website lets you know that she’s not playing around with her plans, she’s got them in detail. And she has a right to call out the rest of the candidates on it. She has a plan to guarantee Medicare for all, to ban private prisons and detention centers, to end student debt, to fight greedy corporations, to keep immigrant families together, to put people first and much more. Warren is planning for a future where prosperity will be holistic —

not just in our purses and wallets, but in our minds, bodies and spirits.

She has been responsive to our concerns and critiques. That lets us and our members know that we are seen and heard in this process. Instead of losing credibility, she is gaining our trust. She not only showed tremendous leadership in making sure historically marginalized groups were represented in her staffing choices, both nationally and in Florida, but she has also stepped up to raise the concerns of black and brown people on every debate or campaign stop.

After the New Hampshire and Nevada primaries, many kept asking us “Why Warren?” Our answer is still the same because not much has changed. Despite the intentional media blackout against Warren, she is still the third candidate in number of delegates, and her plans are still the best for our communities.

We won’t let the widespread misinformation scare us when we know that so many people of color haven’t had a chance to vote yet and we are at least 50 percent of the voters in the Democratic Party.

Dwight Bullard, a former state senator, is the political director for the New Florida Majority.