When Is Hillary Clinton Launching Her Presidential Campaign?

Hillary Clinton is expected to officially announce her campaign seeking to make history as America’s first woman president at lunchtime on Sunday, according to reports.

The former First Lady will launch her second White House bid with a Twitter message at noon eastern time followed by a video and email announcement, claims The Guardian.

The Wall Street Journal was among the US publications predicting the announcement will come this weekend.

And The Guardian quotes a source close to the campaign as saying Mrs. Clinton will immediately fly out from New York to the battleground state of Iowa to begin what is certain to be a long and exhaustive effort to win the Democratic nomination and ultimately the presidency.

Just as she was in the early days of the 2008 campaign, Mrs. Clinton is widely considered to be the frontrunner in the party. On that occasion she was beaten out by Barack Obama, who she would later serve as Secretary of State.

This time around there aren’t expected to be any serious contenders to her as the Democrat flag bearer, although former Virginia Senator Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee have also officially launched 2016 presidential exploratory committees.

Her decision to start campaigning in Iowa signals an attempt to repair the weaknesses of her first campaign. She finished third behind both Obama and former Senator John Edwards in the early caucus in 2008.

On the Republican side, Florida Senator Marco Rubio is expected to announce his candidacy in Miami on Monday and Texas Senator Ted Cruz has already thrown his hat into the race.

But Clinton’s chief rival at present is Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, who launched his presidential campaign on Tuesday and who is leading Clinton by a single percentage point in a poll released yesterday by Quinnipiac University.

Clinton’s team has signed a lease for office space in Brooklyn, presumably to be used as campaign headquarters, and she has reportedly hired Stephanie Hannon, director of product management for civic innovation and social impact at Google, to be her chief technology officer.