Michele Bachmann: I’m not running for Al Franken’s seat because God won’t answer my prayers about it

Former Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann won't be running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken.

The Minnesota Republican had been mentioned as a possible candidate since Franken was pushed out over sexual harassment allegations, but she told a right-wing Christian broadcaster she would not run, reported Right Wing Watch.

“I’m not going to run for that office,” Bachmann told End Times broadcaster Jan Markell. “I had a lot of people contacting me, wanting to give me money and be a part of my team to run for a campaign."

Bachmann said she prayed before reaching her decision, which someone jokingly hoped to influence with a billboard advertisement.

"But what I did is I did what I have done on every other time I thought about running: I took it to the Lord in a very quiet way, I took it before the Lord, I prayed, I tried to have my ears open and hear what God was saying to me,” she said.

In the end, Bachmann said she came to believe God did not want her to run for Franken's old seat.

“I considered it for quite a long time,” Bachmann said. “From the very first day when Al Franken had announced his resignation from the U.S. Senate, I went before the Lord and it became very clear to me that I wasn’t hearing any call from God to do this.”

Bachmann retired from Congress under an ethics cloud in 2014, following an unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

“I’ve always prayed and tried to seek out what God’s will for me would be, and each time before, I’ve had this inner sense that I’m supposed to do this, I’m supposed to run," Bachmann said. "It doesn’t mean a guarantee that I’ll win, all it means is that that’s what I sensed in my spirit, that God wanted me to run. I had absolutely no sense from the Lord at all that I was supposed to run this time.”

“I just had no sense from the Lord that this is something that I should do right now,” Bachmann added, “so I’m not going to do it.”