in the 2020 race, Williamson's campaign announced that it would appoint 99 "Virtual Iowa Caucus Captains" (each assigned to a single county) to turn out supporters in both the virtual and in-person caucuses. Later that month, Williamson participated in the first primary debate. She spoke for four minutes and 58 seconds, placing her 17th in speaking time of the 20 candidates. The LA Times wrote that Democratic voters were "confused" and "transfixed" by Williamson, who declared that her first act as president would be to call New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and say, "Girlfriend, you are so on", a reference to Ardern's emphasis on building a country that treats its children well. On July 30, Williamson participated in the second primary debate. She spoke for eight minutes and 52 seconds. Despite placing 19th in speaking time, she was the most Googled candidate in 49 of 50 states and received the fourth-most attention on Twitter. The spike in searches was prompted by her reference to the Flint water crisis (which she described as a "part of the dark underbelly of American society") and her assertion that President Trump was harnessing a "dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred" which she later described as racism, bigotry, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia propelled by social media. Her campaign complained that her name was often excluded from surveys. She also expressed frustration with the media establishment for not granting her the same level of respect Ben Carson or Herman Cain was afforded in previous elections, and for mocking and dismissing her candidacy. On the day of the third DNC debate, for which she did not qualify, Williamson did an interview with Eric Bolling and expressed further frustration with the media when she thought she was not being recorded. Among her unscripted comments was "what does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are?" On October 18, 2019, Hillary Clinton suggested Russians were "grooming" Tulsi Gabbard to be a third-party candidate who would help Trump win reelection through the spoiler effect (though Clinton claimed she was referring to Republicans, not Russians, she called Gabbard "the favorite of the Russians"). Williamson defended Gabbard, saying, "The Democratic establishment has got to stop smearing women it finds inconvenient! The character assassination of women who don’t toe the party line will backfire." On January 2, 2020, after missing several fundraising targets, Williamson announced