Chelsea Manning is officially on the ballot for the U.S. Senate race in Maryland. The Senate hopeful took to Twitter to share a picture of herself holding up the official filing paperwork.
Manning announced that she was going to run for Senate earlier this month to wildly different reactions and then released her first campaign video earlier this week.
In the video, Manning paints herself as a leader of the resistance. She shows the unrest that’s been going on lately and says that we need someone “willing to fight.” The systems won’t fix themselves, so the people need to fix the systems themselves. “We got this,” she says .
Now, Manning is officially on the ballot for U.S. Senate. She’s running against five other Democrats, including incumbent Senator Ben Cardin. According to Jezebel , Manning as two staffers and around $50,000 in donations compared to Cardin’s reported $2 million. So, it won’t be an easy road for Manning. But while she may not win, she can influence the conversation and push things to the left.
In her first interview about the Senate race, Manning told The Guardian that her politics are “radical anti-authoritarianism” and that she is in this race to win, but she won’t compromise her principles.
officially on the ballot! ??? #WeGotThis https://t.co/xn4k74SZPc pic.twitter.com/5E10eN18eS
— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) January 18, 2018
So, what is Manning ‘s platform? Criminal justice, healthcare, and immigration are her issues. She believes prisons should be closed and inmates should be released, hospitals should be free, and our borders should be open.
Ms. Manning plans to utilize local activists and student groups during the campaign and election, and she will start appearing at public meetings soon.
Manning, of course, is already a well-known name in America, and her fame could be used for and against her. Many praise her leftist politics while others have branded her a traitor.
The former Army soldier was convicted of violations of the Espionage Act after leaking nearly 750,000 classified and unclassified documents to WikiLeaks, and she was sentenced to 35 years in prison, along with other punishments in 2013. She then came out as transgender a day after her sentencing. In January 2017, President Barack Obama commuted all but four months of Manning’s sentence. And since then, Manning has been a very vocal activist.
