Former Rhode Island governor and senator Lincoln Chafee (D) announced his presidential bid on June 3 in Founders Hall in the Arlington campus.

The event kicked off Issues Forum, 2016, a foreign policy speaker series co-hosted by the Financial Times newspaper and Mason’s Center for Politics and Foreign Relations (CPFR).

The public forum was held at Mason as it is an “objective, nonpartisan” institution, according to Robert Guttman, director of the CPFR. The center is within the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs.

Since the bid announcement, things have not been going well for Chafee, who stands dead last in the race. As of press time, he averages .5 percent of the nation’s vote via polling data from organizations including FOX News, CBS, NBC, and ABC. His competitors for the Democratic nomination include Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Martin O’Malley, and Jim Webb.