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Posted: 2020-01-21T14:00:29Z | Updated: 2020-01-21T14:27:47Z

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday promised to appoint women or nonbinary people to at least half of the top positions in the executive branch if she wins the presidency.

The pledge comes as Warren, one of the three leading 2020 Democratic candidates in national polling, is seeking to consolidate and rally female voters ahead of crucial early primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire. After New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and California Sen. Kamala Harris dropped out of the race, Warren and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar are the only major female candidates remaining in the presidential primary.

Our government officials can best serve the American public when they reflect the diversity of the country itself, Warren wrote in a Medium post outlining her plan to revitalize the executive branch following President Donald Trump s administration. The federal government does a dismal job on diversity and inclusion.

Just four of the 23 members of Trumps Cabinet Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Education Secretary Betsy Devos, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Small Business Administration head Jovita Carranza are women. At its peak, the administration of former President Barack Obama had eight female Cabinet members.

In recent days, Warren has increasingly worked to consolidate female voters, and to combat the idea that nominating a woman would put the Democratic Party in a weaker position to defeat Trump in November. Its been a major part of her back-and-forth with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over whether Sanders told Warren a woman could not defeat Trump in 2020. (Warren says he did, Sanders says he did not.)