Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has suspended her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Klobuchar’s exit from the race leaves her fellow Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the only viable woman vying to take on President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
The senator from Minnesota plans to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden, according to the Associated Press.
Klobuchar ran as an unapologetic moderate, frequently citing her track record of bipartisanship during her three terms in the Senate and criticizing progressive proposals like Medicare for All. She also touted her ability to win in the Midwest, where President Donald Trump won key states in 2016.
But the three top moderates in the race, Klobuchar, former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and former Vice President Joe Biden, split what some analysts believe to be the “moderate” vote, paving the way for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to win the most votes in the first three contests. The rise of former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a former Republican, further clouded Klobuchar’s prospects.
Buttigieg announced that he would drop out on Sunday, despite winning the most delegates in Iowa and tying for the most delegates in New Hampshire. Buttigieg is also reportedly planning to endorse Biden, Reuters reported.
Buttigieg often sparred with Klobuchar on the debate stage, as the two centrists argued over political experience, Klobuchar’s foreign policy chops, and Buttigieg’s military service.
Klobuchar also fended off criticism over reports that she mistreated her Senate staff and threw objects at aides during fits of anger. Klobuchar argued that many of her top aides have been with her for years though reports say that she has one of the highest staff turnover rates in Congress.
More recently, the former prosecutors was dogged by criticism over her handling of a 2002 case in which a black teenager was accused of fatally shooting an 11-year-old girl. Klobuchar cited the case as an example of her toughness on crime but the Associated Press reported that new evidence in the case raised questions of whether the teen was railroaded by police. Klobuchar said she backed an investigation into the new evidence but was forced to cancel a rally in Minneapolis on Sunday in response to protesters angry over the case.
Though Klobuchar struggled to win over a sizeable number of voters, she racked up a number of newspaper endorsements from outlets like the New Hampshire Union Leader, Iowa’s Quad-City Times, the Houston Chronicle, and the Seattle Times. She also earned a dual endorsement, along with Warren, from The New York Times.
Klobuchar struggled to keep up with the other candidates’ fundraising, bringing in roughly a quarter of what Sanders and Buttigieg raised in the last quarter. She said her performance at the New Hampshire debate and in the primary led to a major fundraising boost but she was unable to ramp up in must-win states before Super Tuesday.
The Sanders campaign slammed Klobuchar and Buttigieg for opting to endorse Biden after leaving the race.
“Anyone who thinks Biden would be a better candidate than Bernie against Trump hasn’t been watching the 10 Democratic debates,” campaign manager Faiz Shakir told NBC News. “Biden doesn’t have the record, vision, excitement, coalition that Bernie does. We need to do more than just defeat Trump. We need progressive change.”
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