Self-help author Williamson in long-shot bid against Biden

ELECTION 2024

Self-help author Marianne Williamson speaks to the crowd as she launches her 2024 presidential campaign in Washington on Saturday. JOSE LUIS MAGANA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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By Will Weissert

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON >> Self-help author Marianne Williamson, whose 2020 White House campaign featured more quirky calls for spiritual healing than actual voter support, launched another long-shot bid for the presidency Saturday, becoming the first Democrat to formally challenge President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination.

“We are upset about this country; we’re worried about this country,” Williamson told a crowd of more than 600 at a kickoff in the nation’s capital. “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.”

The 70-year-old onetime spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey should provide only token primary opposition — a testament to how strongly national Democrats are united behind Biden. Still, she tweaked the president, a longtime Amtrak rider, by staging her opening rally at the ornately marble-columned presidential suite at Union Station, Washington’s railway hub.

Biden gave his own speech from Union Station just before last November’s elections, when he led Democrats to a surprisingly strong showing, urging voters to reject political extremism.

Williamson, whose red, blue and black campaign signs feature the dual slogans “A New Beginning” and “Disrupt the System,” says she’ll be campaigning in early-voting states on the 2024 election calendar.

That includes New Hampshire, which has threatened to defy a Biden-backed plan by the Democratic National Committee to have South Carolina lead off the nominating contests. Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire have warned that if Biden skips the state’s unsanctioned primary and a rival wins it, that outcome could prove embarrassing for the sitting president.

Striking a defiant tone Saturday, Williamson denounced “those who feel they are the adults in the room” and aren’t taking her candidacy seriously, proclaiming, “Let me in there.”

“I have run for president before. I am not naive about these forces which have no intention of allowing anyone into this conversation who does not align with their predetermined agenda,” she said.