The best-selling self-help author ran an unconventional race.
January 10, 2020, 5:39 PM
7 min read
Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson announced Friday that she is officially suspending her campaign.
"I ran for president to help forge another direction for our country. I wanted to discuss things I felt needed to be discussed that otherwise were not. I feel that we have done that," she wrote to supporters on her website.
In her farewell to supporters, Williamson cited a recognition that she would not, on the eve of early state caucuses and primaries, be able to garner enough votes to move forward and that she didn't want her presence to hamper progressive candidates.
"These are not times to despair; they are simply times to rise up," she said in conclusion. "Things are changing swiftly and dramatically in this country, and I have faith that something is awakening among us. A politics of conscience is still yet possible. And yes….love will prevail."
Marianne Williamson talks to a group of about 50 Iowans during a campaign appearance at the Central Public Library in Des Moines, Nov. 21, 2019.
Marianne Williamson talks to a group of about 50 Iowans during a campaign appearance at the Central Public Library in Des Moines, Nov. 21, 2019.Jack Kurtz/ZUMAPRESS.com via Newscom, FILE
The best-selling self-help author vowed to stay in the race following a mass lay-off her national campaign staff, leaving her with just a "skeletal staff "and her long-time assistant who stepped in to be her Interim campaign manager.
“The point of my candidacy has been to tell the heart’s truth and that does not cost money. Forging a new path for campaign's is going to be necessary, if we’re ever to forge a new path for our country,” Williamson said in a statement in January following news that her national campaign staff was being sharply reduced, She added that she would rely on volunteers to push forward with her long-shot presidential bid.
Williamson has struggled to gain momentum since announcing her presidential bid, failing to increase fundraising while amassing campaign debt and consistently remaining below 2% in the qualifying polls needed to get her on the debate stage.
After parting ways with the campaign, Patricia Ewing, Williamson’s former communications director, told ABC News that “from a fundraising perspective, the campaign was no longer viable.”
Marianne Williamson talks to a group of about 50 Iowans during a campaign appearance at the Central Public Library in Des Moines, Nov. 21, 2019.
Marianne Williamson talks to a group of about 50 Iowans during a campaign appearance at the Central Public Library in Des Moines, Nov. 21, 2019.Jack Kurtz/ZUMAPRESS.com via Newscom, FILE
The celebrity spiritual adviser-turned-2020 candidate put love and peace at the center of her campaign, releasing plans to create a Department of Peace and a Department of Children and Youth. Throughout her campaign, she has faced criticism over her stance on vaccinations, once issuing an apology after calling vaccine mandates “draconian’ and “Orwellian.
Williamson was also the first candidate to call for reparations for African American slave descendants and spoke candidly about her atypical presidential bid, touting her lack of experience as a strength.
"I challenge the idea that the people who got us in this ditch are the only ones who can get us out of it,” Williamson said.
She also faced criticism for some of her views.
Williamson appeared on 'The View' in June and sought to clarify her position on childhood vaccinations saying that while she supports the concept of vaccines she doesn't support the idea of anyone on either side of the debate mandating what people should do.
"I understand the issue of public safety must come first. But I also understand that we must have a balance between public safety and the issues of individual freedom," she told the show's hosts and said that she doesn’t trust the “propaganda on either side.”
Marianne Williamson, 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, gestures while speaking at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting, Aug. 23, 2019, in San Francisco.
Marianne Williamson, 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, gestures while speaking at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting, Aug. 23, 2019, in San Francisco.Ben Margot/AP, FILE
The presidential run wasn't Williamson's first attempt to enter the political fray.
In 2014, Williamson ran as an independent to fill a seat in California’s 33rd Congressional District. She said in a campaign press release that she decided to run for Congress because "I believe America has gone off the democratic rails. A toxic brew of shrinking civil liberties expanded corporate influence and domestic surveillance is poisoning our democracy."
She finished fourth, despite having raised about $2 million dollars and gaining endorsements from celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Nicole Richie. Alanis Morrisette even wrote her campaign theme song.
She told ABC News of that congressional race, "What I vastly underestimated was the significance of the fact that I knew nothing about running a political campaign."
