Hillary Clinton will fire the starting pistol on the 2016 US presidential race this weekend with an unusual online declaration that attempts to jolt new energy into a campaign already in danger of seeming tired before it begins.
The former secretary of state has been widely tipped for months to seek the Democratic party nomination – her second attempt after losing to Barack Obama in 2008 – but is due to confirm her candidacy with a Twitter announcement at noon on Sunday, according to source familiar with the plan.
Despite eschewing the standard home-state rally or visit to a symbolic national landmark to make her declaration, Clinton will follow a more traditional route next week by visiting Iowa, which will be the first state to vote for nominees early next February.
Her stops are expected to be at smaller venues rather than the glitzy launches by Republican rivals senator Rand Paul and Ted Cruz over the last two weeks as her team seeks to manage her entry into a race that many had come to view as a forgone conclusion.
The lack of serious rivals among other Democrats means Clinton’s opponents are already focusing almost as much attention on attacking her as they are fighting their own, much more competitive, primary race.
Retweet if you want a nominee who can actually beat Hillary Clinton. pic.twitter.com/AO53etZpwb
— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 9, 2015
Paul, for example, has been particularly active since his declaration in Kentucky on Tuesday, questioning Clinton’s record on Benghazi during an interview with the Guardian and tweeting regularly about his ability to defeat her.
The imminent entry of other Republicans into the race, starting with Marco Rubio on Monday, is likely to intensify interest in the primaries despite next November’s general election still being some 587 days away.
Many candidates have chosen the beginning of April for their formal campaign launches to maximise the amount of time they can raise money before they have to report fundraising totals to the Federal Election Commission at the end of the second quarter.
An early start certainly helped Cruz, who raised an estimated $10m in the days after becoming the first to declare that he was seeking the Republican nomination.
But the phoney war before this April starting point, during which time no major candidate declared themselves to be running but many were touring crucial states like Iowa and New Hampshire, has raised criticism from transparency campaigners who claim they were flouting FEC guidelines.
Several Democrats are still expected to join the race too. Lincoln Chafee, a former Rhode Island senator and governor, announced on Thursday that he was considering a run for the presidency.
Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley is also expected to mount a serious challenge from the left, and held an event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wendesday night that many interpreted as a step up in his campaigning.
Independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has also said he is considering a run, probably for the Democratic nomination, although privately staff say his enthusiasm has faded recently, perhaps due to a relative lack of support among potential backers.
Polls and anecdotal evidence suggest Clinton remains a clear favourite among party leaders, financial backers and potential Democratic voters, and her bigger worry is convincing voters that she is not taking the party’s nomination for granted.
A similar head-start during the 2008 primary quickly evaporated after she lost in the Iowa caucuses to both Barack Obama and John Edwards – a fate her team are anxious to avoid by stressing the more humble start to this campaign.
Nonetheless, the intense media interest around the more competitive Republican primary does appear to be having an effect on early voting intentions, with one poll in Iowa, Colorado and New Hampshire suggesting she has slipped behind Paul.
The entry of Republican heavyweight and favourite of the party establishment, Jeb Bush, may also test the Clinton camp’s determination to remain low key.
She is also under pressure to outline more concrete policy prescriptions, having been attacked from both the right and the left for being insufficiently transparent about her intentions if she were to return to the White House as president.
Unfortunately for her campaign, more attention has also been focused on her alleged lack of transparency of emails during her time as secretary of state, following disclosures that she used a private account rather than a State Department one.
Instead, Clinton supporters will be looking to start fresh in Iowa next week with a campaign that focuses on her experience, likely success against more extreme Republican candidates and ability to provide some of the same the history-making dynamism of the Obama team by becoming the first female president of the United States.
News of Clinton’s imminent entry into the 2016 race coincided, too, with the release of a new chapter of her last book, Hard Choices, detailing her resignation as secretary of state and dropping a none-too-subtle hint about her future ambitions.
“I wondered for a moment what a quilt of my own life would look like,” writes Clinton after receiving a ‘memory quilt’ from a well-wisher after the birth of a her granddaughter, Charlotte.
“In just a few months, Charlotte had already helped me see the world in new ways,” she adds. “There was so much more to do. So many more panels waiting to be filled in. I folded up the quilt and got back to work.”
