The query got here at a marketing campaign cattle name in April 2019, only a few months after Elizabeth Warren introduced her presidential bid: How would she tackle “the urge to flee to the safety of a white male candidate?”

After a question-and-answer session spent presenting her plans to deal with maternal mortality, prison justice, housing, redlining and tribal sovereignty, that comment got here as “a big bucket of cold water,” Ms. Warren, the Massachusetts senator, writes in a brand new memoir about her failed marketing campaign.

“We all knew the fear she was talking about,” she writes. “Could we — should we — support a woman?”

Her e book, “Persist,” addresses Ms. Warren’s effort to grapple with that query. Obtained by The New York Times earlier than its launch subsequent week, it affords a peek into Ms. Warren’s private view of her loss — a defeat she largely blames on a failure to clarify how she would pay for her well being care plan, the established following of Senator Bernie Sanders, the title recognition of Joseph R. Biden Jr. — and her personal shortcomings.

“There’s always another possibility, a much more painful one,” she writes. “In this moment, against this president, in this field of candidates, maybe I just wasn’t good enough to reassure the voters, to bring along the doubters, to embolden the hopeful.”

Ms. Warren is decided to not wallow in her defeat, focusing many of the e book on her coverage prescriptions, a few of which have been adopted by the brand new Biden administration. She affords reflections on the racial justice protests that roiled the nation after the first, devoting a good portion of a chapter on race to her choice to determine as Native American earlier in her profession — a “bad mistake,” she says. And she writes a shifting tribute to her oldest brother, Don Reed Herring, attributing his demise from the coronavirus final 12 months to a failure of presidency.

“This book is not a campaign memoir,” she writes. “It is not a rehash of big public events. It’s a book about the fight that lies ahead.”

Yet, frank dialogue of her gender — and the obstacles it poses — runs all through the 304-page e book. Though she by no means attributes sexism immediately for her loss, she supplies loads of proof that it remained a severe issue in the race. Stories of discrimination in opposition to ladies run all through her e book, as she recounts the struggles of her personal profession trajectory and affords prescriptions for adjustments like paid depart and inexpensive youngster care.

Again and once more, Ms. Warren means that Democratic voters had been cautious of nominating a second lady, fearing one other defeat to Donald J. Trump. She “had to run against the shadows of Martha and Hillary,” she writes, a reference to Martha Coakley, who misplaced two statewide campaigns in Massachusetts, and Hillary Clinton.

While Ms. Warren anticipated to face some sexism, she particulars in the e book, her plan was merely to outwork these expectations with a robust group, vibrant grass roots organizing and loads of coverage plans.

“I would do more,” she says. “I would fill up every space with ideas and energy and optimism. I would hope that my being a woman wouldn’t matter so much.”

That concept collided with the truth of the competition pretty rapidly. When calling donors early in her marketing campaign, Ms. Warren was shocked by the variety of instances potential supporters talked about Mrs. Clinton’s defeat.

“I wondered whether anyone said to Bernie Sanders when he asked for their support, ‘Gore lost, so how can you win?’ I wondered whether anyone said to Joe Biden, ‘Kerry lost, so clearly America just isn’t ready for a man to be president,’” she recounts pondering as she lay in mattress after her first day spent elevating cash for her presidential bid. “I tried to laugh, but the joke didn’t seem very funny.”

After being handed over as vice chairman and Treasury secretary, Ms. Warren has stored a lower-profile in current months, preferring to exert her affect via non-public conversations with the White House. Her high aides have been tapped for highly effective posts all through the administration and Democratic National Committee.

She affords reward for Mr. Biden — “a good leader and fundamentally decent man” — and most of her former rivals all through the e book. A dust-up with Mr. Sanders — “fearless and determined” — over whether or not he informed her in a private 2018 meeting {that a} lady couldn’t defeat Mr. Trump is essentially ignored.

But one former opponent will get way more withering remedy. Ms. Warren spends a number of pages detailing her dedication to take down Michael R. Bloomberg, the previous New York City mayor, in a February 2020 debate, saying she believed his choice to spend almost a billion {dollars} of his private fortune to skip the early primaries “undermined our democracy” by primarily handing the nomination to the richest man.

Ms. Warren describes herself as “stunned” when Mr. Bloomberg ignored her early assaults: “Like so many women in so many settings, I found myself wondering if he had even heard me,” she writes.

Her debate efficiency was largely credited with ending Mr. Bloomberg’s bid. But Ms. Warren can’t resist mentioning an “an unexpected kick” in response to her assaults — a remark that she was too “mean and angry.”

“And there it was, the same damn remark made about every woman who ever stood up for herself and threw a punch,” she writes. “Repeat after me: fighting hard is ‘not a good look.’”