Daily US Times, Indiana: Former Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg has announced he is ending his campaign for the White House.
He was the first openly gay candidate from a major party who was running for the Democratic Nomination to face Donald Trump in November this year
Despite a successful start, the 38-year-old’s campaign lost momentum in recent weeks.
His decision to end his presidential campaign came out ahead of a key day on Tuesday in the Democratic race to take on Trump.
Democrats in 14 states, including the two most populous states, California and Texas will vote (as well as American Samoa and Democrats Abroad). A massive 1,357 delegates will be distributed – almost a third of all those available through the entire primary season.
After the massive election day, it could become much clearer who the nominee will be.
Pete Buttigieg departure leaves six Democrats still in the running.
Speaking to supporters in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana, Mr Buttigieg stressed the values he said his campaign had hoped to promote.
“And so we must recognize that at this point in the race, the best way to keep faith with those goals and ideals is to step aside and help bring our party and our nation together,” Mr Buttigieg said.
“So tonight I am making the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the presidency.”
He said he would do everything his power to ensure a Democratic win in the upcoming election.
Buttigieg surprised many when he narrowly won the caucuses in Iwoa on February 3. But he failed to keep his success in the next caucuses vote in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. He finished a distant fourth in South Carolina on Saturday.
An adviser told Reuters that Buttigieg was dropping out to avoid helping the odds of front-runner Vermont senator Bernie Sanders- a self-described democratic socialist.
“Pete was not going to play the role of spoiler,” said the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Could he have went through Super Tuesday and beyond? Sure. But this was not a vanity exercise.”
How Buttigieg set his ambition for White House?
His campaign was one of the least likely for the presidency in years. His only political experience had been as the centrist mayor of the 306th largest city in the US, South Bend, Indiana between 2012 and January this year.
Before that, he had served as a US Navy intelligence officer and deployed in the Afghan war.
He was the first millennial to run for office and if elected, he would have been the youngest president of the United States.
He had been long rumoured as a possible campaign in the 2020 election and when he announced his candidacy in April last year, he was able to break through a crowded group to become one of the most recognizable faces in the campaign.
He also struggled to gain his support among the African-American voters. The point further proved by his poor result in South Carolina. Joe Biden made a huge comeback in the state.
As a mayor, he came under fire among minority voters. He had fired South Bend’s first African American police chief and was criticized over how he handled the case of a white police officer who shot dead a black man last year.
Just a week ago, Pete Buttigieg had a lead in Democratic convention delegates, but now he is out of the race. That’s how quickly fortunes can change in presidential politics.
Buttigieg with Biden?
Buttigieg did not endorse any Democratic candidates yet. But CNN reports that he and former Vice President and one of the frontrunners in the campaign Joe Biden traded voicemails on Sunday. A familiar source told the news network that there has been staff-level communication between the Buttigieg and Biden campaigns tonight, however.
