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Spiritual adviser and bestselling self-help author Marianne Williamson will travel to the early voting states in the Democratic presidential nominating calendar following her expected launch early next month of a primary challenge against President Biden, Fox News has learned.
Williamson, who called for reparations and a Department of Peace as part of her long-shot and unsuccessful campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, declared in a press release last week that she was exploring "the possibility of running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2024."
"As America gears up for the 2024 presidential election, I’m preparing for an important announcement on March 4th in Washington DC," Williamson advertised.
An adviser in the likely White House contender’s political circle told Fox News that Williamson will travel to South Carolina, New Hampshire, Michigan and Nevada after March 4.
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Marianne Williamson speaks onstage at Guerrilla Tactics & Asymmetric Political Activism during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals, on March 14, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Mike Jordan/Getty Images for SXSW)
With many leaders in the Democratic Party from both the establishment and progressive wings saying they will support Biden, who is expected in the coming weeks or months to announce his re-election campaign, Williamson would likely become the first Democrat with a national following to primary challenge the 80-year-old president.
"You can appreciate what the president has done — defeating the Republicans in 2020 — and still feel it is time to move on," Williamson said Tuesday in an interview on a New Hampshire news-talk morning radio program.
Williamson told host Jack Heath on "Good Morning New Hampshire" that "many of us, myself included, feel that in order for the Democrats to win in 2024, we’re going to have to be able to offer to the American people something much more than" what she says Biden is offering.
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During the 2020 cycle, Williamson was an unconventional candidate who preached a politics of love. She emphasized "six pillars for a season of moral repair," including economic justice. She proposed creating a Department of Children and Youths and a Department of Peace, and she pushed for reparations for the descendants of African American slaves. Among her unorthodox acts was holding a meditation session while campaigning in New Hampshire.
Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson leads a mediation in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Sept. 9, 2019.
However, she struggled with fundraising and failed to qualify for most of the Democrat presidential debates. Days after laying off most of her small staff, Williamson dropped out of the race in January 2020, just ahead of the start of the nomination primaries and caucuses. In late February 2020, she endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, who at the time was the front-runner for the nomination. However, the progressive champion from Vermont, who was making his second White House run, was decisively defeated by Biden in South Carolina’s primary at the end of February and in the March contests, and later ended his bid and backed the then-former vice president.
In her Tuesday interview, Williamson pushed for universal health care and a livable wage, free childcare, free college and called for "a fundamental reform of the economic landscape in this country"
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Williamson said "what’s important is that we have a candidate who can win in 2024 and that is by offering the kind of fundamental reform that Bernie Sanders" has championed throughout his career.
Sources close to Williamson tell Fox News that she has traveled to New Hampshire a handful of times over the past year, and she returned late last week for meetings with progressive leaders and activists in the state.
Her trips to New Hampshire come as no surprise as political strategists have said that if there is going to be a primary challenge against Biden, the Granite State appears to be the state where the action will take place.
The sign outside the New Hampshire capitol in Concord honors the state's cherished century-old tradition of holding the nation's first presidential primary in the race for the White House. (Fox News )
New Hampshire, which prides itself on its well-informed electorate and its emphasis on small-scale and grassroots retail politics, has for a century held the first primary in the race for the White House. While Republicans are making no changes to their presidential nominating calendar in the 2024 election cycle, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) earlier this month voted overwhelmingly to approve a new top of the calendar pushed by Biden that upends the traditional schedule.
THE TIME MARIANNE WILLIAMSON LED A MEDITATION SESSION ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
New Hampshire will now vote second in the DNC’s calendar, along with Nevada, three days after South Carolina, under the new schedule.
However, Granite State Democrats warn that New Hampshire will still go first — courtesy of a longstanding state law that mandates the leadoff primary position — and that a primary not sanctioned by the DNC, where Biden does not take part, could invite trouble for the president.
President Biden shakes hands of supporters along the rope line, after addressing the crowd at the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting, in Philadelphia Feb. 3, 2023 (Fox News)
"Absolutely you will see me in New Hampshire because what matters is democracy, not just what the DNC decides," Williamson stressed on Tuesday. "The voters should decide who should be the nominee in 2024….The people should be making that decision. Not the DNC."
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Williamson may not be the only challenge to Biden from the left flank of his own party.
Environmental lawyer and anti-COVID vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will hold an event in New Hampshire early next month. Kennedy, the son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of the late President Kennedy, will hold an event on March 3 at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, which for nearly a quarter-century has been a must-stop in the Granite State for potential or actual White House contenders.
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