Former West Virginia state Sen. Richard Ojeda ended his 2020 presidential bid before most of the Democratic candidates who are expected to run entered the race.
Ojeda conceded that his campaign was not winnable.
“I don’t want to see people send money to a campaign that’s probably not going to get off the ground,” he said in a video provided to The Intercept on Friday.
Ojeda, a retired Army major, launched his presidential campaign in November, becoming one of the first Democrats to enter the race.
He ran unsuccessfully in the 2018 midterm elections for a House seat in West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District. During that campaign he expressed his willingness to work with President Trump, whom he voted for in the 2016 election.
In announcing his presidential run, Ojeda was critical of his own party.
“I have been a Democrat ever since I registered to vote, and I’ll stay a Democrat, but that’s because of what the Democratic Party was supposed to be,” he said in November. “The reason why the Democratic Party fell from grace is because they become nothing more than elitist, that was it. Goldman Sachs, that’s who they were. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party that fights for the working class and that’s exactly what I do. I will stand with unions wholeheartedly and that’s the problem — the Democratic Party wants to say that, but their actions do not mirror that.”
Several other Democrats have entered the race since then.
Outgoing South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced this week he is vying for the Democratic nomination. He joined Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, in running for president. Julian Castro, who served as housing secretary under President Barack Obama, is also running.
