Hillary Clinton Heads to Iowa After Announcing Candidacy for President
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JP Yim/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Shortly after she announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, Hillary Clinton climbed into a van and headed for Iowa.
Clinton, 67, left Sunday afternoon from her home in Chappaqua, New York, right around the time of the announcement, an aide to the former secretary of state confirmed to ABC News.
Clinton is expected to arrive in Iowa sometime Monday evening.
She announced her candidacy in a video posted to YouTube. The video shows Americans getting ready for new challenges — spring gardening, children beginning schooling, adults moving or applying for jobs — as well as Clinton discussing the challenges she will take on in a presidential campaign. Specifically, the video focuses on the middle class.
“I’m running for president,” Clinton said in the message, which was also posted to her new campaign website on Sunday. “Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion.”
In her announcement video, Clinton urged people to get involved in the cause, saying, “It’s your time. I hope you’ll join me on this journey.”
Clinton enters the race as the clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Over the past two years, pro-Democratic groups like Ready for Hillary and Emily’s List have been working on her behalf to raise money, support and enthusiasm for her.
In recent months, Clinton has worked behind the scenes to begin building a robust campaign apparatus, hiring a wide range of people, including many of President Obama’s former advisers and strategists, for top positions in her campaign.
According to her campaign, the next six to eight weeks will be a “ramp-up” period where she’ll travel across the country to “build a nation-wide grassroots organization” and to spend time “engaging directly with voters.”
In May, she will hold her first rally and deliver the speech to kick off her campaign.
At this early stage in the campaign, Clinton holds a clear lead over her potential Republican rivals. A recent ABC News-Washington Post poll showed Clinton ahead of potential GOP candidate Jeb Bush by a 54- to 40-percent margin in a potential matchup, with even bigger leads against Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who plans to announce on Monday whether he will launch his own White House bid.
Despite her lead among other candidates, Clinton does face some challenges. As a candidate, she will be expected to answer questions that have dogged her over the past few years, including her use of a personal email account as secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of money from foreign governments, and her handling of the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
The former secretary of state’s announcement marks Clinton’s second attempt to win the White House and become the first woman president of the United States.
After her defeat at the hands of Obama in 2008, Clinton repeatedly said “no” when asked whether she would ever seek the presidency again. But in a newly-released epilogue to her memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton indicated her new role as a grandmother may have influenced her decision to run.
“Rather than make me want to slow down,” she wrote, “it has spurred me to speed up.”
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