Author Marianne Williamson ended her long-shot Democratic primary challenge to President Biden on Wednesday.
“I hope future candidates will take what works for them, drinking from the well of information we prepared,” Williamson said in her announcement. “My team and I brought to the table some great ideas, and I will take pleasure when I see them live on in campaigns and candidates yet to be created.”
She went on to thank her supporters for giving her encouragement during the campaign.
“While we did not succeed at running a winning political campaign, I know in my heart that we impacted the political ethers,” Williamson added. “As with every other aspect of my career over the last forty years, I know how ideas float through the air forming ever new designs. I will see and hear things in different situations and through different voices, and I will smile a small internal smile knowing in my heart where that came from.”
Much to be grateful for… pic.twitter.com/vbSP5b8yrD
— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) February 8, 2024
Williamson first ran for president in 2020 and made national headlines by calling for a “moral uprising” against then-President Trump while proposing the creation of the Department of Peace. She also argued that the federal government should pay large financial reparations to Black Americans as atonement for centuries of slavery and discrimination.
Her second White House bid featured the same nontraditional campaigning style and many of the same policy proposals. She struggled to raise money and was plagued by staff departures from her bid’s earliest stages.
She tweaked Biden, an avid Amtrak fan, by announcing her campaign at Washington’s Union Station. She campaigned especially hard in New Hampshire, hoping to capitalize on some state Democrats’ frustration with the president. That followed a new plan by the Democratic National Committee, championed by Biden, that reordered the party’s 2024 presidential primary calendar by leading off with South Carolina on Feb. 3.
Williamson acknowledged from the start that it was unlikely she would beat Biden, but she argued in her launch speech in March that “it is our job to create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.” (LA Times)
Williamson's decision to drop out comes after winning only 2 percent of the vote in South Carolina and nearly 3 percent in Nevada.
Democratic Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, meanwhile, has vowed to stay in the race, calling his challenge to Biden “a mission of principle.”