Amy Klobuchar ended her presidential bid after failing to maintain a bump in momentum following the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary.
Klobuchar told campaign staff on Monday that she is ending her campaign after a series of disappointing finishes in the four early nominating contests, multiple news outlets reported.
She is set to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden at a Dallas rally on Monday. Her exit from the race comes less than a day after former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg ended his campaign. Each had single-digit finishes in Saturday’s South Carolina primary.
Klobuchar, 59, became an attractive candidate for voters looking for a centrist candidate — those seeking an alternative to socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders who were not confident in 77-year-old Biden’s stamina or the experience of 38-year-old Buttigieg.
She surprised with a third-place finish in the Feb. 11 New Hampshire primary, ahead of Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but that momentum evaporated by the Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses.
The Minnesota senator kicked off her 2020 campaign in February 2019 at an outdoor rally along the Minnesota riverfront in Minneapolis during a snowstorm, using the weather-related circumstances to argue she is tough enough to take on President Trump.
Trump weighed in via Twitter, questioning how global warming can be real when Klobuchar launched her candidacy during a blizzard. Klobuchar regularly used Trump’s attack in her stump speech, joking about how his signature hairstyle would fare in a snowstorm.
The former prosecutor was elected to the Senate in 2006, becoming Minnesota’s first elected female senator, and has easily won her three Senate campaigns by wide margins. During her reelection in 2018, she won 43 Minnesota counties Trump had won two years prior.
An Associated Press investigation raised questions about Klobuchar’s handling of a 17-year-old case in which a black teenager was sent to prison for life for firing a stray bullet that killed an 11-year-old girl, suggesting he could be innocent. The controversy put a dent in momentum she gained from better-than-expected showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
While campaigning in Nevada, Klobuchar again faced criticism when she was unable to name Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in a Telemundo interview and was accused of pandering to Hispanic and Latino voters when she shared that her Spanish name in fourth grade was Elena.
Despite earning many newspaper endorsements, Klobuchar’s poll numbers were consistently well below those of top-tier candidates who had higher name recognition.
Before she even announced her candidacy, Klobuchar’s reputation was scrutinized after reports that she fostered a hostile work environment and often lashed out at her staff over small mistakes.
