Political activist, author and presidential candidate Marianne Williamson postponed a campaign visit to Portland Tuesday.

Williamson, a onetime spiritual adviser to Oprah Winfrey, became the first Democrat to formally challenge President Biden for the 2024 nomination when she launched a long-shot campaign in March.

Marianne Williamson

Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson 

She was scheduled to appear at the SerenityMe Mindfulness Center on Forest Avenue at 6 p.m., but her campaign issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying the event had been postponed because Williamson is ill.

“As a consequence our events in New Hampshire and Maine must be postponed,” the statement said. “We will be in touch as soon as possible regarding the rescheduled date and time. She’s very eager to be back and we will definitely reschedule.”

Williamson is the author of more than a dozen books and in the 1980s opened the Center for Living in Los Angeles, and later New York, which worked to support people with HIV and AIDS.

She ran an unsuccessful independent congressional campaign in California in 2014 and supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 progressive challenge of eventual Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

She also made a bid for president in 2020 but laid off staff nationwide and suspended her campaign in the weeks before the lead-off Iowa caucus, saying she didn’t want to “get in the way of a progressive candidate winning.”

Williamson later endorsed Sanders in the 2020 presidential contest. He finished second to Biden in the Democratic primary.

This report contains material from The Associated Press. 

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