Candidate Keeps Running, but Without a Staff

Bestselling author and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson has laid off her entire 2020 campaign staff but is pushing ahead with her Democratic presidential bid, two former staffers said Thursday. Paul Hodes, a former congressman who had served as Williamson’s New Hampshire state director and senior campaign adviser, confirmed that he had been laid off and "that the others in the national campaign have been laid off," the AP reports. A former campaign aide said Williamson let her campaign staff go Tuesday because of financial concerns. Both aides confirmed that Williamson was still in the 2020 race.

Williamson still has events scheduled in Iowa in the coming weeks, including a "yoga fundraiser" and a forum on faith and politics. The spiritual guru has barely registered in the polls since launching her quixotic bid for president last January. She raised $3 million in the third quarter of last year; her fourth-quarter haul has not yet been reported. Williamson launched her campaign by calling for "a moral and spiritual awakening in the country," per CNN. "Nothing short of that is adequate to fundamentally change the patterns of our political dysfunction," she said. Williamson took part in the June and July debates but hasn't qualified lately.

(More Marianne Williamson 2020 stories.)