Warren, once a frontrunner, ends her US presidential campaign

WASHINGTON: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, once a frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, ended her campaign on Thursday, setting up a two-man duel between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

"I’m suspending our campaign for president," the 70-year-old progressive lawmaker said in remarks to her campaign staff. "I may not be in the race for President in 2020, but this fight -- our fight -- is not over," Warren said. "And our place in this fight has not ended."

Warren did not announce any immediate plans to endorse either of the remaining major candidates -- the 77-year-old former vice president Biden, or the 78-year-old leftist senator from Vermont, Sanders.

Warren’s campaign said she planned to hold a press conference at 12:30 pm (1730 GMT). Warren’s withdrawal from the race for the top spot on the Democratic ticket against President Donald Trump in November comes after she failed to win a single state on Super Tuesday, including her own.

Her decision to drop out comes one day after that of billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who quit on Wednesday after a disappointing Super Tuesday performance and endorsed Biden.

Trump responded to Warren’s withdrawal with a tweet mocking her and Bloomberg. "Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren, who was going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head, just dropped out of the Democrat Primary...THREE DAYS TOO LATE," Trump said.

"She cost Crazy Bernie, at least, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas," the president said of three of the states at stake on Super Tuesday. "Probably cost him the nomination! Came in third in Mass."

Warren led some national polls last summer but she never managed to build a broad coalition to carry her through to success in the primaries, finishing behind fellow progressive Sanders and the moderate Biden in 14 states on Super Tuesday.

Warren finished third in her home state of Massachusetts behind Biden and Sanders.Warren informed staff of her decision during a meeting on Thursday morning, after taking a day to consider her options. She will hold a press conference at 12.30pm ET in Boston.

“I want to start with the news,” she told campaign staff on a conference call on Thursday morning. “I want all of you to hear it first and I want you to hear it straight from me: today, I’m suspending our campaign for president.”

She continued: “It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters – and the changes will have ripples for years to come.” Her departure comes after a series of lackluster finishes in the early contests, including a demoralising third-place finish in her home state of Massachusetts on Super Tuesday. After surging to the front of the field last summer with an urgent call for “big structural change” in the US, she began to slide, squeezed from the left by Sanders and from the center by more moderate alternatives.

Warren, 70, attempted to reset her campaign this winter by recasting herself as the “unity candidate” best positioned to bring together the Democratic party, even as she sharpened her criticisms of Sanders, Biden and multi-billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who she essentially drove out of the race with a devastating attack during a debate in Nevada last month. Bloomberg ended his bid on Wednesday.

In her call with staff, Warren said her team was “willing to fight, and, when necessary, we left plenty of blood and teeth on the floor”. She said: “And I can think of one billionaire who has been denied the chance to buy this election.”

Her campaign was widely praised for its organisation but early investment in states like Iowa failed to translate into wins. She came third there, a comparatively respectable finish that was overshadowed by the disastrous debacle over the reporting of the results.

That was followed by a fourth-place finish in New Hampshire. She slipped to fifth in South Carolina. And on Super Tuesday, where her team predicted she would have a “strong performance”, she did not win a single state: not even Massachusetts, where liberals split between her and Sanders while moderates broke heavily for Biden, who hardly campaigned there. It was blow from which she unable to recover, despite a fundraising surge last month and field organisations in more than 30 states.

Trump immediately seized on her exit, referring to her by the racial slur “Pocahontas”. He said she was “going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head”.