Marianne Williamson wants Nevada to know she’s still running for president. 

“And Nevadans, I think, will decide whether there's enough of a base of support for me to continue,” she told The Nevada Independent on Saturday.

At the West Charleston Library, the Democrat and prolific self-help author whose pre-campaign claim to fame was once having been spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey was at her second stop of the day, a 90-minute panel discussion on dangers to democracy that was part promo for Question 3 — a ranked choice ballot measure in Nevada — and part regular stump speech. 

To a crowd of around two dozen, a mix of the Williamson faithful and people who didn’t know she was running (and several who did, but had long ago dismissed her candidacy), she railed against the political establishment that she said had unfairly locked her out.

But while she spoke, The Associated Press called the South Carolina presidential primary race for Biden just minutes after the polls closed Saturday, with the incumbent president earning more than 96 percent of the vote. Williamson sat a distant second at just 2.1 percent, ahead of Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) at 1.7 percent.  

Weeks earlier in New Hampshire, in a primary that counted for no delegates and for which Biden was left off the ballot — Biden won in a write-in landslide, 40 points clear of runner-up Phillips. Williamson finished a technical fourth, behind the mass of “other write-ins.” 

In an interview with The Nevada Independent following the event, Williamson said that media outlets claiming that Biden had “no competition” were engaged in outright lies, that a “political media industrial complex that squashes any candidates other than its chosen, as it did this year, is not good for democracy.”

“You don't suppress democracy to save democracy,” she said. “So I have held on despite the rather unbelievable obstructions, blocks that have been placed in my way. 

Asked if Nevada was an inflection point for her campaign to continue, Williamson said: “We'll see what happens, we'll see what my heart says on Tuesday night.”

Jack Anglin, 69, came to see what Williamson was about — but wasn’t “looking to find a new savior or something.” Anglin is a registered Democrat, but a proponent of the Forward Party founded by another 2020 hopeful, businessman Andrew Yang. He had come to the library that evening curious about Williamson — but was still committed to voting for Biden come November, and that it was important to avoid a third-party candidate that could split the electorate. 

“We're not gonna screw things up for Biden, he said. “Definitely don't want Trump back.”

Williamson, 71, is either in the middle or nearing the end of her second long-shot bid for the presidency. Her 2020 effort ended well before Nevada Democrats held their caucus.

Then, Williamson cast her campaign as a rejection of the traditional party orthodoxy, a rejection of fear and an embrace of love as a political principle that she memorably took to the debate stage in 2019. 

Fast forward, and now Williamson has continued to seek a niche among the Democratic Party’s disaffected fringes, looking to capture progressives unhappy with the Biden administration. Her campaign  slogans are “Smash the Machine” and “Disrupt the Corrupt,” while tweeting Photoshopped images of herself as Wonder Woman, the “W” turned upside down to “M.” 

In her speeches and in routine appearances on TikTok and videos posted to X, formerly Twitter, she has called for a Department of Peace, routinely criticizing the Biden administration as militaristic, especially amid rising tensions in the Middle East. She told The Nevada Independent she was the “lone progressive in this race,” and backed “Medicare for All,” tuition-free college and technical school and what she called a “Marshall Plan” for 10 million new “social housing” units nationwide in the next decade. 

On top of that message, she has chafed against her treatment by the Democratic National Committee, calling the primary a “game that is impossible, a game that is rigged.”

“In 2020, they were satisfied simply to make fun of me,” she said. “This time, they came after me.”

In 2020, Nevada caucus-goers broke decisively for the progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) over more moderate candidates including former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttiegieg and Biden. 

Williamson acknowledged that her campaign “did not ignite the passions of the Bernie crowd,” and that she did not know why. Still, she cast herself as the successor to Sanders on the 2024 trail — “the lone candidate talking about the fundamental economic reform necessary to restore America's middle class.”

“President Biden offers incremental change and incremental change will not keep the rabble from the gates of the Bastille,” she said. “And the rabble is closer than the establishment elite has any idea.”

Williamson’s campaign has spent the last few weeks in turmoil. A staff Zoom call in which she openly contemplated ending her campaign after a disappointing result in New Hampshire was leaked online. In the aftermath, she committed to staying in the race in a post on X — but canceled a series of campaign events scheduled in Nevada just days later.  (After this story was published, Williamson's campaign disputed the characterization of the Zoom call as either in turmoil or chaotic).

Williamson said she canceled those events because she pivoted to a series of online events that “seemed more likely to have an effect.”

In Nevada, more than 98,000 Democrats have already voted early or by mail. On Tuesday, the rest will get their say — this time voting in a primary where Phillips won’t appear after he missed the state’s filing deadline last October. 

But questions as to whether Williamson can capitalize on Phillips’ absence, or whether she believes her campaign can actually reach the young voters of Nevada and disaffected nonpartisans, remains unclear. 

“I have no idea,” she said.

Update: Feb. 4, 2024 at 12:02 p.m. -- This story was updated to include characterization from Williamson's campaign regarding the January volunteer Zoom call.