The former Democratic US senator, secretary of state, and first lady Hillary Clinton will release a video this weekend announcing her candidacy for the 2016 US presidential race, multiple outlets are reporting.
The details differ slightly from outlet to outlet, and all are citing anonymous sources. The Wall Street Journal reports that Clinton will announce some time this weekend. An anonymous source told the Guardian that Clinton will make an announcement on Twitter at noon Eastern time on Sunday, and then release a video online and an email announcement immediately after, and that she’ll then launch the campaign in Iowa. CNN and the Daily News are reporting that Clinton will announce her candidacy through the video’s release on social media, then travel to Iowa and New Hampshire to campaign. Bloomberg reports that she’ll announce before heading to Iowa for some intimate gatherings. Quartz has reached out to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and will update this post with any response.
This launch would come as a surprise to absolutely no one, as Clinton has been the Democratic frontrunner for a while. She campaigned against current US President Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries, but ceded to him and was then appointed his Secretary of State.
Iowa is a good place for Clinton to kick off her campaign—a recent poll shows that she is losing steam there compared to Republican hopefuls including Ted Cuz and Rand Paul, who have announced their candidacies. So far, no other Democrats have officially announced that they will run. Former senator and Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee was the latest to announce an exploratory committee, yesterday (April 9).