Elizabeth Warren’s stumbling efforts to douse the firestorm surrounding her claims of being a Native American minority have raised concerns among local and national Democrats who are questioning her campaign’s competence.

“There’s nobody watching this that doesn’t think she’s in big trouble,” one well-known Massachusetts Democrat said.

Joe Trippi, a prominent national Democratic consultant, told the Herald that while Warren has time to recover, the campaign should have anticipated this issue would surface.

“The problem is they weren’t ready for something they should have been ahead of,” Trippi said.

Another nationally known Democratic consultant said while there is no hand-wringing yet in the party, “The fact they weren’t prepared for this is a little surprising.”

Some national political experts had much stronger words for Warren’s conflicting explanations about why she listed herself as a minority in university directories.

“This takes her biography into a bizarre dimension,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It has derailed the effort to define Warren in a voter-friendly way.”

Sabato also said that Warren’s claim that she didn’t list herself as a minority to gain an employment advantage is not believable.

“This is what happens when candidates don’t tell the truth,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious she was using (the minority listing) for career advancement.”

One well-known Massachusetts Democratic strategist faulted Warren and her campaign for failing to put out a consistent message.

The strategist also said many local Democrats are alarmed at the campaign’s failure to contain the damage after the Herald first reported about Warren’s minority status at Harvard in the 1990s, based on claims her great-great-great grandmother was Cherokee.

After first saying she didn’t know anything about reports that Harvard Law had listed her as a minority, Warren’s campaign then said she was “proud” of her Native American heritage, citing records showing she was 1⁄32nd Cherokee.