Pete Buttigieg will be dropping out of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, the New York Timesreports. Buttigieg was scheduled to speak at a rally in Dallas on Sunday, ahead of the Super Tuesday primaries, which includes Texas.
Following Buttigieg's fourth-place finish in the South Carolina Democratic primary, the writing was on the wall for the former South Bend, Indiana mayor. His inability to pull black voters has been an issue throughout his campaign, and if he didn't show any signs of improving on this glaring weakness, it was eventually going to be his downfall.
After narrowly defeating Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucus last month, Buttigieg's historic victory was immediately overshadowed by the confusion that surrounded the voting results process. With his 14 delegates from Iowa, Pete became the first openly gay candidate to represent a major American political party and earn presidential primary delegates. Now that Buttigieg is no longer in the running, people, including those he ran against, don't want to debate where he went wrong or what he could've or should've done. Instead, they want to remember the positives that came from his presidential bid.
With Buttigieg's departure, and Tom Steyer dropping out on Saturday, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, and Mike Bloomberg are the remaining Democratic hopefuls.
