Convicted leaker Chelsea Manning lost her Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate in Maryland, in a landslide.
Taking on longtime Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Manning came in a distant second place, with just 5.7 percent of the vote.
Cardin received 80.4 percent, while other candidates split the remaining 14 percent.
Manning began the long shot bid to unseat Cardin back in January—but despite being a high-profile candidate, the race was never considered competitive.
The transgender Manning came to public attention in 2010, as a male soldier then-named Bradley Manning, for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to Wikileaks.
Manning was convicted for the leaks in 2013, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The sentence was commuted by former President Barack Obama in 2017, just days before leaving office. Manning spent nearly 8 years in prison.
Manning’s campaign was unorthodox—with Manning dubbing the campaign a “growing political insurrection” that “advanced an antiauthoritarian agenda,” and using incendiary language to describe agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which Manning called “literally the new gestapo.”
But the biggest shock came in May, when Manning threatened a suicide attempt. Posting a photo of feet on a high window ledge, Manning tweeted the words: “I’m sorry.”
Shortly after that, Manning tweeted: “im not really cut out for this world — i tried adapting to this world out here but i failed you — i couldn’t do this anymore.”
Someone claiming to be a friend later took control over Manning’s twitter, saying the beleaguered candidate needed “some space.”
The Democratic nominee, Cardin, who has served two terms in the Senate, will face an as-of-yet undetermined Republican in November.
