Marianne Williamson announced on Wednesday night that she was abandoning her presidential campaign, a day after failing to break single digits in Nevada’s primary, placing third behind President Joe Biden and “none of these candidates.”
“I read a quote the other day that said sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful too,” Williamson said in a video message posted to Instagram.
“And so today, even though it is time to suspend my campaign for the presidency, I do want to see the beauty.”
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In an email to supporters, the 71-year-old said she appreciated everyone who’d accompanied her along the campaign trail over the previous 10 months. “While the level of our failure is obvious to all, a level of success is real nonetheless,” she said.
“I will not allow the mental torment of all the woulda-shoulda-couldas to tie me to the past, but rather I will keep my eye on the larger story,” Williamson added.
“In ways I cannot yet see, none of this will have been in vain. There are hidden gifts that have only just begun to reveal themselves.”
This is Williamson’s second failed presidential campaign. In 2020, she dropped out before the leadoff Iowa caucuses after failing to qualify for the third Democratic primary debate.
Her sophomore bid included many of the same policy proposals as before, including universal health care, paid parental leave, and a minimum wage increase. She has also demanded a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict and promised to declare a national climate emergency in the U.S. if elected.
The self-help author and former spiritual leader officially launched her campaign early last March, well over a month before Biden even confirmed his intention to run again. At a kickoff event, she promised to “create a vision of justice and love that is so powerful that it will override the forces of hatred and injustice and fear.”
But Williamson’s campaign foundered as she lagged behind the president and failed to gather any momentum. Her campaign was plagued by frequent staff turnover—including four separate campaign managers—and mounting debts, with Politico reporting last summer that her bid was $270,000 in the red. By Wednesday, that figure had climbed to $593,000, according to the outlet.
In New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary last month, she scored just 4 percent of the vote, while Biden collected upwards of 60 percent as a write-in candidate. The dismal result came after Williamson sank significant time and energy into her campaign, spending more than two weeks in the Granite State in the lead-up to its primary.
“New Hampshire will decide,” Williamson told ABC News at the time. “If my numbers are high enough and I have the money, I’ll be going on to the next state. If not, I will hold my head [high], proud of the messages that we gave and what this campaign stood for.”
After the polls closed, Williamson floated the idea of dropping out to campaign volunteers, but chose to dig her heels in after a video of the Zoom call was leaked to a pro-Biden meme account.
She fared even worse in Nevada this week, though, earning just 3 percent of the vote. In South Carolina’s primary on Saturday, she took in 2 percent of the vote—though she placed a distant second, ahead of another Biden rival, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN).
Phillips remains Biden’s sole challenger, though he had earned zero delegates to the president’s 91 as of Wednesday.
