Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Michele Bachmann Says God Silent On Whether She Should Replace Al Franken

Michele Bachmann declared she is not running to replace Al Franken’s Senate seat, less than a month after telling a televangelist that she was looking into it, the Washington Post reported.

Bachmann told a conservative radio host in Minnesota that she “wasn’t hearing any call from God to do this.”

“I took it to the Lord in a very quiet way,” she said. “I prayed, I tried to have my ears open and hear what God was saying to me.”

Bachmann was one of the final six Republican’s vying for the presidential nomination in 2012. She is also in demand as a speaker on conservative and evangelical radio shows and in churches. She was part of the Donald Trump campaign’s evangelical advisory council.

Bachmann initially told televangelist Jim Bakker she was considering a run in January. Bakker’s show reaches millions of viewers every day.

Religious Republican candidates frequently invoke hearing a call from God that they should run for office.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.