Marianne Williamson formally launches likely long-shot Democratic primary challenge to Biden
By Shania Shelton, CNN
Author Marianne Williamson formally announced Saturday that she’s running for president in 2024, her second bid for the White House following an unsuccessful campaign in 2020.
Her announcement likely sets up the first — albeit long-shot — Democratic primary challenge to President Joe Biden, who has long said he intends to run for reelection but has yet to make a formal announcement.
“I have run for president before,” she told supporters at her campaign launch at Union Station in Washington. “I’m not naive about the forces which have no intention of allowing anyone into this conversation who does not align with their predetermined agenda.”
Williamson spoke for roughly 20 minutes, mostly about economic and social injustice, along with corruption in Washington.
“The status quo will not disrupt itself; that’s our job,” she said. “Let the people get in there. We’ll handle it from here.”
In a statement last month teasing her announcement, Williamson said she was motivated by “a realization of the Democratic Party’s shift away from the party of President Franklin Roosevelt” and “the economic injustices endured by millions of Americans due to the influence of corporate money on our political system.”
“The opponent is not a specific situation or circumstance,” Williamson said Saturday. “The opponent is an economic mindset that has had its grip on this country for the last 50 years.”
In her bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020, Williamson failed to gain traction in a crowded primary field. Her appearances on the debate stage, though, did garner attention. She said then-President Donald Trump had harnessed a “dark psychic force of collectivized hatred” and vowed that her first act as president would be to call then-New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and say, “Girlfriend, you are so on,” in response to Ardern saying that she wanted to make her country the best place in the world to be a child.
However, the author then went on to repeatedly miss the Democratic Party’s fundraising and polling thresholds to qualify for most of the primary debates. She laid off her campaign staff nationally a week before dropping out of the race in early 2020.
After suspending her campaign, Williamson threw her support behind businessman Andrew Yang in the Iowa caucuses before officially endorsing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ bid for president.
During her previous campaign, the former Democratic hopeful pushed for expansion of social safety net programs and reparations to the descendants of slaves.
Meanwhile, on the GOP side, Republicans are lining up for the opportunity to take on Biden, with Trump as the leading contender.
Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech and health care entrepreneur, have announced their own presidential bids to challenge the former president in the Republican primary.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Lauren Koenig contributed to this report.
