Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who beat Bernie Sanders in Iowa, has dropped out of the Democratic presidential race following his disappointing performance in the South Carolina primary.
Mr Buttigieg, 38, an openly gay military veteran, followed up his stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses with a strong second place finish in the New Hampshire primary. But he failed to attract non-white voters, winning only three delegates in Nevada last week and doing even worse in South Carolina on Saturday, signalling he would have struggled in the diverse states that vote on Super Tuesday on March 3.
His decision to abandon the race before Super Tuesday could provide a big boost to Joe Biden. The former vice-president won the South Carolina primary by a 29-point margin on Saturday but still faces an uphill struggle to the Democratic nomination, in part because of the large number of moderates in the field vying to overtake Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
“Today is a moment of truth,” Mr Buttigieg told supporters in South Bend on Sunday night, as he announced his decision to withdraw his candidacy. “The truth is that the path has narrowed to a close, for our candidacy, if not for our cause.
“We have a responsibility to consider the effect of remaining in this race any further. Our goal has always been to help unify Americans to defeat Donald Trump and to win the era for our values,” he added.
“And so we must recognise 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.”
Mr Buttigieg’s withdrawal may put pressure on other centrist candidates, including Amy Klobuchar, to pull out of the race.
Ms Klobuchar has likewise struggled to appeal to non-white voters, but is leading the polls in her home state of Minnesota, which will vote on Super Tuesday. Ms Klobuchar’s team did not respond to a request for comment about whether she intended to remain in the race.
Mr Buttigieg had pitched himself as the younger moderate alternative to Mr Biden, a claim that he made more strongly after he came well ahead of the former vice-president in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
He also tried to sell himself as the best alternative to Mr Sanders, the self-declared democratic socialist who has called for an economic revolution and leads in the delegate count.
Mr Buttigieg made a big effort to win black voters in South Carolina, but his campaign fell flat in the southern state.
“Buttigieg had a decent amount of appeal to white voters, which you could see even in the exit polls in South Carolina, but he never did anything for non-white voters,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “That was a running theme of Buttigieg’s campaign since he emerged as a leading candidate, and he just never figured that part out.”
Mr Buttigieg’s poll numbers heading into Super Tuesday — when 14 state contests will award one-third of the total delegates ahead of the Democratic National Convention this summer — suggested he was in danger of winning very few delegates.
Staying in the race would have hurt Mr Biden and made it more likely that Mr Sanders would head to the Democratic convention in Milwaukee in July with the biggest number of delegates, even if he did not have the 1,991 needed for outright victory.
In recent weeks, Mr Buttigieg had fallen in national polls to fifth place on 11 per cent, just behind Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. Mr Sanders leads on an average of 30 per cent, more than 11 points ahead of Mr Biden, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.
Mr Biden may get a bump in the national polls following his big win in South Carolina, which showed his strength — and Mr Sanders’ weakness — with African Americans. He had argued that South Carolina would be the “firewall” that would rescue his campaign and prove that he was the strongest candidate in more diverse states.
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The latest Morning Consult polling showed Mr Buttigieg’s supporters split over their second choice, with 21 per cent preferring Mr Sanders, 19 per cent backing Mr Biden, 19 per cent supporting Ms Warren and 17 per cent behind Michael Bloomberg.
Mr Kondik said Mr Buttigieg’s exit from the race could provide Mr Biden with a big boost on Super Tuesday, especially among white voters in states such as Massachusetts and Minnesota.
“As good as Biden did in South Carolina and as good as he might do in other southern states on Tuesday, the south is not enough,” Mr Kondik said.
Many people in early voting states expressed enthusiasm for Mr Buttigieg but said they were concerned about his age and would rather vote for him in a future presidential election.
Beth Elmaleh, 59, of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, said before Saturday’s primary: “Pete always seems to say the right thing, I am just worried about him being young; I am worried about how he would be received in the general election. I just wonder if he needs another four or eight years.”
