As of March 9, senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, along with former mayors Mike Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg have officially dropped out of the 2020 presidential race.
Buttigieg dropped out of the race on March 2, the day before Super Tuesday. His decision came soon after former vice president Joe Biden’s astounding victory in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Feb. 29.
Although exiting the race was not a move that Buttigieg necessarily wanted to make, an official statement said it was a move he believed had to be made.
Buttigieg said, “Our goal has always been to help unify Americans to help defeat Donald Trump and to win the era for our values. 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 country together.”
The statement for his exit came from South Bend, Indiana, where Buttigieg served as mayor for two terms. According to MSNBC, despite his strong start on the campaign trail, the initial momentum quickly ran dry because of the lack of support from minority voters.
March 9 was the day both Warren and Bloomberg officially exited the race. With this happening so close to Buttigieg, it raised a lot of attention. Because of Warren’s exit, the Democratic race is now left primarily to Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, though Rep. Tulsi Gabbard remains in the race.
Warren’s exit came after her poor showings in crucial Super Tuesday contests, according to MSNBC. In spite of her defeat, both Biden and Sanders praised Warren this past Thursday, March 4.
Biden, in a recent post on Twitter, called Warren “the fiercest of fighters for middle class families.”
Sanders said, “She has run a very strong issue-oriented campaign and the reason that her campaign’s ideas will remain viable for many, many years is she has changed political conscience in America.”
As for Bloomberg’s exit, the results were devastating. Super Tuesday served as a harsh dose of reality for the former New York mayor.
Despite having a net worth of around $60 billion, Bloomberg failed to even make a dent the first time he appeared on any ballot in the Democratic Primary. This embarrassment inevitably led to his dropping of the race on March 3.
According to an NBC news projection, Bloomberg only managed to clinch victories in the tiny U.S. territory of American Samoa and received only four delegate votes.
After Bloomberg’s exit, he announced his endorsement of Biden.
Bloomberg said, “Three months ago, I entered the race for President to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump.”
As of Wednesday, March 11, Biden was able to take a big lead over Sanders to land a total of 823 delegates in the March 10 elections. Sanders follows with 663.
Although Gabbard is still in the race and has two delegates, she will not appear in the next debate on March 15. The Democratic National Committee recently changed the qualifying rules to include that candidates must have at least 20% (or 374) of the total number of delegates by debate day.
