Pete Buttigieg ends presidential campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said on Sunday that he would suspend his campaign.

The announcement came just two days before Super Tuesday, where 14 states are to hold their primaries.

"We got into this race in order to defeat the current president and in order to usher in a new kind of politics," Buttigieg told supporters. Now, he said, it was time to "step aside and help bring our party and our country together."

The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, had narrowly won the Iowa Caucus, but failed to win the contests that followed, with a disappointing fourth place finish in the most recent primary in South Carolina.

At 38-years-old, Buttigieg was the youngest candidate in the race and a relatively unknown figure in American politics when he announced his bid for president. 

An Afghanistan war veteran who would have been the first openly gay US president, Buttigieg had modeled himself as someone who could unite Democrats, independents and moderate Republican voters, against President Donald Trump.

“Mayor Pete,” as he was known to his supporters, had promoted his status as a Washington outsider to create contrast with the other candidates in the race.  

His departure now leaves six Democrats in the party's presidential race, which had more than 20 candidates when it kicked off.

jcg/rc (AFP, Reuters, AP)

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