Pete, Amy drop White House bids

 

UPDATE: Amy Klobuchar became the latest candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination to drop out of the race today (Monday). The Minnesota senator will endorse former Vice President Joe Biden later today.

She follows former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg, who suspended his campaign on Sunday. He is also expected to endorse fellow moderate Biden.

Super Tuesday will include 15 primaries state primaries, including California and Texas. As of Monday, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders led the delegate count with 60, followed by Biden with 54 and Buttigieg with 26. Elizabeth Warren has eight and Klobuchar seven.

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Pete Buttigieg on Sunday night became the second casualty of Saturday’s South Carolina Democratic presidential primary.

After finishing in fourth place with 8.2 percent of the vote and no delegates to the national convention, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana announced he was dropping out of the race. Billionaire Tom Steyer made a similar announcement Saturday night.

“The truth is the path has narrowed down to a close for our candidacy if not for our cause,” said Buttigieg, according to the Associated Press. “We must recognize that at this point in the race, the best way to keep faith with those goals is to step aside and help bring our party and country together,” he said to supporters in South Bend.

The chief beneficiary of this narrowing of the field could be former Vice President Joe Biden, who won the primary with 48.4 percent of the vote and 35 delegates. Buttigieg was considered to be in the “moderate lane” of the party and some of his voters in the Super Tuesday primaries and after might go to Biden, now considered the “front runner” in that wing of the Democratic Party.

According to Real Clear Politics, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leads the delegate count with 58, followed by Biden with 50 and Buttigieg with 26. No other candidate is in double figures.