US election: Pete Buttigieg, early Democrat frontrunner, drops out of presidential race
The exit of Pete Buttigieg is another boost for Joe Biden, who scored a crucial Democratic primary win in South Carolina.
Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor who won the Iowa caucus, has dropped out of the presidential race.
The decision comes after the gay, Rhodes scholar and military veteran lost momentum in the recent South Carolina and Nevada primary contests after a strong start in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
He failed to win the support African-American voters and came fourth in the South Carolina primary on Sunday (AEDT) with only 8.2 per cent of the vote.
Mr Buttigieg made the announcement on Monday. “The path has narrowed to a close for our candidacy,” he said.
“By every historical measure, we were never supposed to get anywhere at all.
“We send a message to every kid out there wondering if whatever marks them out as different means they are somehow destined to be less than.
“To see that someone who once felt that exact same way can become a leading American presidential candidate with his husband by his side.”
The withdrawal of Mr Buttigieg, a moderate, will help the leading moderate in the race, Joe Biden, who had a landslide victory in the South Carolina primary.
The disastrous vote-counting issues in Iowa diminished the thrust he might have achieved from a once unthinkable win, while an unexpected surge by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar likely kept him from picking off the New Hampshire primary winner, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Buttigieg’ and Biden have been running in the same centrist lane.
If Buttigieg had pressed on into Super Tuesday and beyond, it could have split the vote and help Sanders jump to a virtually insurmountable lead.
Buttigieg has expressed publicly that it would be a mistake for Democrats to nominate Sanders, a self-declared democratic socialist, to go up against Trump.
The president weighed in rapidly on Twitter, claiming that the Democratic Party leadership would act to halt Sanders winning.
Pete Buttigieg is OUT. All of his SuperTuesday votes will go to Sleepy Joe Biden. Great timing. This is the REAL beginning of the Dems taking Bernie out of play - NO NOMINATION, AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2020
Additional reporting: Agencies
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