Washington, March 2 (IANS): Pete Buttigieg, the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana and also the first openly gay contender to launch a major presidential campaign in the US, has dropped out of the Democratic nominee race.
"Tonight I am making the difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the presidency," Efe news quoted the 38-year-old as saying in a speech in South Bend on Sunday.
"We sent a message to every kid out there wondering if whatever marks them out as different means they are destined to be less than.
"To see someone who once felt that exact same way can become a leading presidential candidate with his husband at his side," he added.
Buttigieg had stood out as the youngest candidate in a race dominated by men over 70 and just a month ago he had been reported to be the favourite for the Democratic presidential nomination among voters in the party's moderate centre after winning the February 3 Iowa caucuses by a narrow margin, the first state to vote during the Democratic primary season.
However, Buttigieg was unable to broaden his base of voters and win the support of Latinos in Nevada or the African-Americans in South Carolina in the states' primaries held last week.
"The truth is that the path has narrowed to a close," Buttigieg said in his speech on Sunday.
The former mayor's prospects for the contests on Super Tuesday on March 3 were not very promising, given the fact that voter surveys have indicated that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders would win in California and Texas.
Buttigieg's withdrawal will surely benefit the rest of the moderates vying for the Democratic nomination, particularly former vice president Joe Biden, who on February 29 won the South Carolina primary.
The former Mayor's bowing out may also help Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who up to now has been obligated to share with the status of a presidential hopeful from the Midwest and will now be able to further develop her argument that she represents the "middle" of the country - both geographically and politically.
Although he pledged to do "everything in (his) power" to ensure the election of a Democratic President in the upcoming polls in November, Buttigieg directed veiled criticism at Sanders, the favourite for the Democratic nomination.
"We need leadership to heal a divided nation, not drive us further apart," he said. "We need a broad-based agenda that can truly deliver for the American people, not one that gets lost in ideology."
Responding to Buttigieg's withdrawal, President Donald Trump tweeted: "Pete Buttigieg is out. All of his Super Tuesday votes will go to Sleepy Joe Biden. Great timing. This is the real beginning of the Dems taking Bernie out of play - no nomination again."
Buttigieg's youth and his atypical profile attracted many white moderate voters who saw in him an intelligent, thoughtful, articulate and well-rounded candidate who is progressive, the son of an immigrant (his father is Maltese), educated at Harvard and Oxford, a veteran who plays the piano and speaks seven languages.
His departure from the Democratic contest comes after magnate Tom Steyer, whose key issue had been climate change, dropped out on February 29, leaving six Democratic contenders still in the fray: Sanders, Biden, Klobuchar, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hindu-American Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.