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O’Malley, Christie, Fiorina and Bush call it quits
By Ashley Summerfield
@ash_summerfield
As we embark on the journey of state primaries and caucuses, some candidates are beginning to realize just how competitive the 2016 presidential race is going to be.
Whether it be a lack of funding, followers, or personal reasons, there are several candidates that have recently made the decision to post-pone their campaigns and even pull themselves from the race altogether.
On the Democratic side, former Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, has ended his campaign. From the start, O’Malley had a hard time sparking interet, often hidden in the shadows of two very strong candidates, Clinton and Sanders. O’Malley was often cut short on speaking times in debates, if he was even invited, and received only 0.6 percent of the votes in the Iowa caucus. O’Malley made the decision to suspend his campaign directly following the Iowa caucus. According to ABC News, O’Malley spent the most time in Iowa out of all of the candidates, but this wasn’t enough to gain supporters. Sources told ABC that “he ran and energetic and honorable campaign.”
“When I got into this 8 months ago I had no doubt that it would be anything but a tough fight. And a tough fight it was,” said O’Malley in a press release announcing this suspension.
O’Malley went on to say that he has “always been drawn to a tough fight.”
During O’Malley’s 8 months of candidacy, he was never able to find his voice among Democratic candidates. He remained in single digits nationally throughout his campaign.
On the Republican side, both Governor Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina have made the decision to suspend their campaigns. Jeb Bush terminated his, too. Christie and Fiorina each had memorable moments in the early debates, but it wasn’t enough to gain the following they needed to compete with Republican frontrunners.
Christie made the decision to pull from the race following the New Hampshire primaries. Christie spent a great deal of time and money in New Hampshire and came in a disappointing 6th place. After holding a private meeting with his campaign team, Christie released a statement to the public to announce the suspension of his campaign.
“I leave the race without an ounce of regret,” Christie said in his statement.
Christie ended his campaign in positivity, thanking his supporters and all of those who contributed in his campaign in some way.
“I have both won elections that I was supposed to lose and I’ve lost elections I was supposed to win,” Christie said as he made the point that “you never know what will happen” throughout a campaign.
Similarly to Christie, Fiorina announced that she had officially suspended her campaign following the New Hampshire primaries, where she won 4.1 percent of
the vote. Fiorina based her campaign on citizenship and stressed the issue again in her suspension statement. “I will continue to serve in order to restore citizenship government to this great nation,” Fiorina said.
She spoke on Feminism and the importance of serving our country. “To young girls and women across the country, I say: do not let others define you,” Fiorina said in her statement.
Many candidates have relied heavily on social media in this race, even when releasing statements of their campaign suspension. These former candidates took to Facebook to post their full statements and received overwhelming support from followers.
