Klobuchar ends Democratic presidential bid, set to endorse Biden
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Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar is ending her Democratic presidential campaign and will endorse former Vice President Joe Biden, Fox News has confirmed.
“The Klobuchar campaign confirms the senator is flying to Dallas to join Vice President Biden at his rally tonight where she will suspend her campaign and endorse the vice president,” said Carlie Waibel, the Klobuchar campaign press secretary.
Klobuchar’s withdrawal comes a day before the Super Tuesday contests and follows former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s exit from the race.
BUTTIGIEG EXIT SIGNALS EFFORT TO BOOST BIDEN AGAINST SANDERS IN DEMOCRATIC BRAWL
The exits of Buttigieg and Klobuchar signal the underlying concern party leaders have about the trajectory of the 2020 race — that unless those candidates representing the more moderate end of the spectrum close ranks behind the most viable choice, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, could steamroll his way to become the party’s standard-bearer in November’s election.
The decision of these candidates to drop out is seen as an indication of efforts to boost a candidate like Biden as the alternative to Sanders before the latter’s delegate lead becomes too great. The announcements followed Biden’s landslide victory in South Carolina over Sanders and the rest of the field – a win that was much larger for the former vice president than expected.
As for Klobuchar, the senator outlasted several better-known and better-funded Democrats, thanks to a better-than-expected third-place finish in New Hampshire. But she couldn’t turn that into success elsewhere, as she struggled to build out a campaign that could compete across the country and had poor showings in the next contests.
Even before she got into the race, Klobuchar was hit with news stories claiming she mistreated her Senate staff, and she had a higher-than-usual turnover rate in her office. Klobuchar said she is a «tough boss» but countered that she has several longtime employees, including the manager of her presidential campaign.
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She also faced questions over her prosecutor past, including over how Klobuchar’s office in Minneapolis once prosecuted the case of a black teenager accused of the 2002 shooting death of an 11-year-old girl. Klobuchar has cited the story to show her toughness on crime, but critics raised questions about whether Myon Burrell was railroaded by police. The issue followed Klobuchar on the campaign trail, with protesters forcing her to cancel a rally in suburban Minneapolis days before Super Tuesday.
Klobuchar was hoping to own the moderate lane of a Democratic field that grew to some two dozen candidates. But that got much tougher when Biden joined the race in April, starting as a front-runner and remaining there.
Fox News’ Alexandra Rego, Ellison Barber and Paul Steinhauser and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
