News84Media
—
Author Marianne Williamson is expected to formally announce Saturday that she’s running for president in 2024, her second bid for the White House following an unsuccessful campaign in 2020.
Her announcement will likely set 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.
Williamson is scheduled to launch her campaign at Union Station in Washington, DC, at 2 pm ET on Saturday. It will also be live-streamed on her website and social media channels.
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.”
In pictures: Former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson
Williamson ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 but failed to gain traction in a crowded 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 Veront 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.
