Elizabeth Warren drops out of 2020 presidential race after disappointing Super Tuesday showing

March 05, 2020

Sen. Elizabeth Warren quit the Democratic presidential race on Thursday, leaving former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders as the last major contenders battling for the nomination to challenge President Donald Trump this fall.

“We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together – what you have done – has made a lasting difference,” Warren said on a call with her campaign staff ahead of the official announcement at an event in Massachusetts, according to a transcript provided by the campaign.

It was not immediately clear if the progressive Massachusetts senator planned to endorse one of her rivals, a move that could be pivotal as Biden and Sanders jockey for a delegate lead. Warren spoke to both candidates by phone on Wednesday, though none of the Democrats has said what was discussed.

Warren’s exit — like that of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg on Wednesday — came after the Massachusetts senator’s poor showings in the crucial Super Tuesday contests, when 14 states held primaries, and the territory of American Samoa held a caucus.

Her departure leaves what was once a historically diverse Democratic field essentially narrowed to two white men in their 70s. Sanders is 78 and Biden is 77.

Surrounded by supporters in Massachusetts on Thursday, Warren described her anguish that there would not be a woman nominee in 2020. On the trail, when Warren met little girls, she often bent down to promise them that she would fight for the presidency because “that’s what women do.”

“One of the hardest parts of this is all those pinky promises. All those little girls are going to have to wait for a woman,” Warren said.

The trajectory of the race has rapidly shifted in recent days, with Biden gaining momentum in the contests that voted on Super Tuesday. Biden won at least 10 states on Tuesday, a dramatic turnaround for a candidacy that very recently looked doomed.

Warren’s dismal showing the same day included a third-place result in her own state of Massachusetts, which Biden won, and where she finished 5 percentage points behind the Vermont independent Sanders.

Warren previously failed to notch any wins in the Democratic race’s first four nominating contests in February, when Sanders appeared to consolidate support from the party’s progressive wing.

The former Harvard Law professor had sought to court that left flank — which flocked to Sanders during the 2016 primary race — with a series of ambitious and detailed policy proposals.

Those plans included a wealth tax on the very rich, and a call to break up Big Tech companies.

Warren alluded to those many plans during her Thursday call with staff.

“What we have done – and the ideas we have launched into the world, the way we have fought this fight, the relationships we have built – will carry through, carry through for the rest of this election, and the one after that, and the one after that,” she said.

But Sanders largely retained his hold on left-leaning voters, besting Warren by significant margins in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/elizabeth-warren-drops-out-of-presidential-race.html