Carson signals end to bid
WASHINGTON: Ben Carson, the only Republican to have once threatened the lead of Donald Trump in national polls, said on Wednesday that he saw no path forward and would skip a debate yesterday in his hometown, Detroit, signalling an end to his candidacy after paltry performances in the nominating contests.
Mr Carson stopped short of suspending his campaign and said he would provide more details today, but after his dismal showing on Super Tuesday, his campaign is effectively over.
A retired paediatric brain surgeon, Mr Carson long held Republicans’ favour with an uplifting biography and a quiet manner that belied his strafing critiques of President Barack Obama and liberalism, which delighted grass-roots conservatives.
But in the end, Mr Carson withered under mocking insults hurled at him by Mr Trump, especially in Iowa, and he suffered from voters’ desire for a candidate projecting strength at a time of anxiety over terrorism.
After a disappointing showing in the Iowa caucuses, Mr Carson never seemed to regain his footing. On Super Tuesday, his hopes for a strong performance in the South faltered as he ran a distant fourth or fifth in every state.
“I do not see a political path forward in light of last evening’s Super Tuesday primary results,” Mr Carson said. “However, this grass-roots movement on behalf of ‘We the People’ will continue.”
Even in a fiercely anti-establishment year, Mr Carson’s months of popularity and prodigious support from small donors — the US$20 million (710 million baht) he raised in the summer led all candidates — stunned political experts.
“Mr Carson’s favourability ratings have never changed,” Armstrong Williams, a close adviser, said just before the Iowa caucuses last month, in which Mr Carson finished fourth. “But after Paris and San Bernardino, his supporters made a different decision.
Ultimately, it was questions about Mr Carson’s grasp of foreign policy that eroded voters’ and donors’ confidence. During a debate, he falsely said that Chinese forces were operating in Syria.
Advisers were quoted in a New York Times article as saying Mr Carson was struggling to get up to speed on national security.
After Iowa, Mr Carson barely campaigned in New Hampshire where he finished a dismal eighth and sixth in South Carolina. In the 11 contests this week, he won only three of nearly 600 delegates.
By not declaring definitively that he is suspending or ending his campaign, he can continue to raise money.
Whatever comes next, he will retain his national celebrity and a potentially lucrative list of donors.