Elizabeth Warren suspends 2020 campaign after Super Tuesday failure

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. The candidate failed to win even her home state on a disappointing Super Tuesday.

Warren released a statement via Twitter on Thursday vowing to continue the “righteous fight,” and shared a transcript of a call with her staff in a Medium post. While the text was heavy on the self-congratulatory platitudes, an endorsement of any other candidate was conspicuously absent.

Speaking to the press outside her home after confirming her withdrawal from the 2020 race, Warren refused to endorse another candidate: “Let’s take a deep breath and spend a little time on that,” she said. “We don’t have to decide right now.”

The ex-candidate blamed her failure to win any primaries, including in her home state, on the existence of “two lanes” in the race - a “moderate” lane occupied by Biden, and a “progressive” lane occupied by Sanders - and no room for her.

Her inability to win a single state in the 14-primary Super Tuesday contest is likely to have triggered her decision to drop out. She has collected a total of 65 delegates so far, but her failure to place within the top two in Massachusetts – or win any other state – cast a long shadow over the rest of the primary.

The senator’s departure comes within a week of former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar, and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg leaving the race and endorsing former vice president Joe Biden. Given that Warren has been accused of acting as a ‘spoiler’ to divert votes from progressive Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, all eyes will certainly be watching to see who she endorses after officially leaving the race.

Should Warren throw her support behind Biden, she’d likely be handing him her delegates as well. Delegates for dropped-out candidates become ‘free agents’ at the party convention, but often join with whoever their candidate endorses.

A late February poll suggested 40 percent of Warren’s supporters would unite behind Sanders, who is trailing Biden in delegates after the former vice president made an unlikely comeback on Tuesday. The Democratic Socialist started off the primary season strong, winning the first three states, only to see Biden overtake him with the help of voters in the south.

President Donald Trump weighed in on Warren’s departure, noting that she was “going nowhere except into Mini Mike [Bloomberg]’s head” and pointing out she cost “Crazy Bernie” Sanders three states - and possibly the nomination. However, while Biden’s lead over Sanders was very close in several of the states he won, it’s not clear all Warren’s supporters would have jumped ship to Sanders.

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