Mayor Buttigieg ends U.S. presidential bid
03 March, 2020
Pete Buttigieg, who entered the Democratic presidential race as a member of family unknown and positioned himself as the continuing future of the party during an improbable rise to the top tier of a crowded field, ended his White House bid on Sunday.
Buttigieg, 38, a former two-term mayor of South Bend, Ind., an Afghanistan war veteran and the first openly gay applicant to make a competitive run for the U.S. presidency, narrowly won the Iowa caucuses that kicked off the nominating race in February and finished a close second in New Hampshire.
But his early momentum from those rural, mostly white states didn't translate into electoral success in the more diverse states of Nevada and South Carolina.
After finishing a distant third in the Nevada caucuses, Buttigieg came in fourth on Saturday in SC, where he won support from just 3% of African-American voters.
The centrist Democrat’s withdrawal from the race could help former Vice President Joe Biden, a fellow moderate who got a much-needed victory on Saturday and today is seeking to wrest momentum from liberal front-runner Bernie Sanders in this week’s 14-state Super Tuesday nominating contests.
Speaking in South Bend, Buttigieg said his campaign commenced its “unlikely journey” with an employee of four, no big email lists no personal fortune.
“We experienced this race so that you can defeat the existing president and to be able to usher in a new sort of politics,” Buttigieg told a crowd of supporters. Now, he said, it was time to “step aside and help bring our party and our country together.”
In a tweet, Biden said Buttigieg had run a “trail-blazing campaign predicated on courage, compassion, and honesty,” adding: “This is merely the start of his time on the national stage.”
Buttigieg had sought to unite Democrats, independents and moderate Republican voters, arguing his status as a Washington outsider could rebuild many to defeat Republican President Donald Trump in November’s election.
But he faced persistent questions about his capability to make an impression on black voters, a core Democratic voting bloc.
Buttigieg’s tenure as South Bend mayor, which ended on Jan. 1, drew scrutiny for a lack of diversity on the local police force and a fatal shooting of a black resident by a officer. He also lacked Biden’s national profile or long-standing relationships with the black community.
Source: the-japan-news.com