Deval Patrick ended his long-shot Democratic presidential campaign after failing to gain traction during his last-minute bid in a crowded field of candidates.
“The vote in New Hampshire last night was not enough for us to create the practical wind at the campaign’s back to go on to the next round of voting. So I have decided to suspend the campaign, effective immediately,” Patrick said in a statement Wednesday.
Patrick, who was the first black governor of Massachusetts, holding office from 2007 to 2015, announced his candidacy in November as party insiders wondered whether there were any stronger possible candidates, with former Vice President Joe Biden slipping in the polls at about the same time.
Rather than competing against large, expensive rival campaigns in Iowa, which holds the first state nominating contest of the year, Patrick focused on trying to win support in the early states of New Hampshire, which is close to his home base, and South Carolina, where black voters make up a majority of the Democratic primary electorate.
But after receiving less than 1% in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, he ended his bid. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and entrepreneur Andrew Yang also ended their bids after poor showings in the Granite State.
He scrambled to put together a national campaign infrastructure after his competitors had been meeting voters for months, rarely broke 1% support in Democratic primary polls, and never appeared in a Democratic primary debate. While a few voters expressed openness to his candidacy, Patrick’s hope that he could mount a surprise surge never became reality. He canceled an early campaign event at Morehouse College, a historically black school in Atlanta, after only two people showed up.
Other challenges for Patrick, 63, were that he joined Boston investment firm Bain Capital and was open to help from super PACs, a problem for far-left factions of the Democratic Party that advocate for campaign finance reform and rail against private equity giants.
