Madeline Carter/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
Marianne Williamson speaks to supporters at a campaign event at the Spiritual Living & Unity Center in Las Vegas on February 4, 2024.
CNN
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Author Marianne Williamson has announced that she is suspending her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I am deeply grateful to all of the wonderful people who have accompanied us on our political journey over the past 10 months. The level of our failures is clear for all to see, yet some successes are real. ,” Williamson said in a lengthy statement emailed to supporters.
“Processing this experience has been an ongoing journey in itself and forgiveness will guide me as I move through this experience. I won't forgive. I'll rather keep my eyes on the bigger story. I don't know yet, but none of this will have been in vain. There's a hidden talent that's starting to reveal itself. I just got a job,” Williamson wrote.
In a video accompanying the statement, she said in part, “We did everything we could to shine a light on a very dark time.”
Williamson's announcement comes after President Joe Biden claimed his first official victory of the 2024 cycle in the South Carolina Democratic primary last weekend, followed by another win in Nevada on Tuesday. Despite the president not being on the ballot in New Hampshire last month, Mr. Williamson was unable to secure his victory. Instead, Biden symbolically won the primary with an unofficial write-in campaign.
This is Williamson's second bid after unsuccessfully running for president in March 2023 in 2020.
At her campaign launch, she touted her previous campaign by saying, “I'm not naive about the forces that don't want to bring people into this conversation who don't align with their predetermined policies.”
“The status quo is not destructive of itself. That's our job,” Williamson said at the time. “Let's get people in there. We'll take care of it.”
In 2020, Williamson was unable to gain traction in a crowded primary field. But her appearances on the debate stage drew attention, including when she claimed then-President Donald Trump had tapped into the “dark spiritual forces of collective hatred.”
Williamson's resignation leaves Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips as the only Democratic challenger to Biden, who is already preparing to face Trump in the general election.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Brian Locks, Ethan Cohen, Shania Shelton, Kate Sullivan and Eric Bradner contributed to this report.
