Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar Drops Presidential Bid, Joins Pete Buttigieg In Endorsing Joe Biden

BY ELENA MOORE

Just ahead of the single most important day of the Democratic primary, former Vice President Joe Biden picked up the endorsements of two former rivals.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is suspending her presidential campaign, just one day before her home state was set to vote on Super Tuesday. Minnesota is one of 14 states set to vote Tuesday. There has been little polling of Minnesota, but Klobuchar had held a small lead in surveys there.

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who ended his own White House bid Sunday night, appeared with Biden at a barbecue restaurant in Dallas Monday evening.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., at a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She has ended her presidential bid.
CREDIT: Patrick Semansky/AP

Earlier Monday, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar announced she is suspending her presidential campaign and would endorse Biden.

Standing on stage with Biden in Dallas, Klobuchar said a unified party is crucial if Democrats want to beat President Trump.

“I believe that we are never going to out divide the divider-in-chief,” she said.

Biden, she said, will help Democrats “win big.”

Klobuchar saw a surge of momentum and fundraising after a strong debate performance and a third-place showing in the New Hampshire primary, but, like Buttigieg, she struggled to expand or sustain that support as the primary moved into larger, more diverse states.

She finished sixth, with just 3% of the vote, in South Carolina on Saturday.

The senator from next-door Minnesota had campaigned heavily in Iowa. She had held nearly 200 events in the state, and traveled to all 99 of its counties. She ended up finishing fifth there.

In Iowa and elsewhere during the campaign, Klobuchar often stressed her Midwestern roots and more moderate Democratic policies. She said she was a candidate who was able to get things done — and win in battleground areas.

She also touted several newspaper endorsements, including a co-endorsement (with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren) by The New York Times, an endorsement by the Quad-City Times in Iowa and endorsements by a few New Hampshire outlets, including the Union Leader in Manchester.

Klobuchar was one of four senators still running for president while also serving as jurors in the impeachment trial of President Trump. The trial’s schedule disrupted the final weeks of campaigning around the Hawkeye State.