After weeks of struggling in the polls and being unable to raise enough cash to pay his staffers, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday became the first major candidate to drop out of the 2016 presidential race.
“We have a tremendous field — the best in a generation — so I step aside knowing our party is in good hands, and as long as we listen to the grassroots, the cause of conservatism will be too,” Perry said in a speech at the Eagle Forum, a gathering in St. Louis, Missouri, of other candidates and conservative activists. “That is why today I am suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States.”
Perry’s campaign had been struggling ever since he announced his candidacy in June. In recent weeks, reports surfaced that his campaign staff were no longer being paid as the GOP candidate’s polling numbers were stuck at near zero.
Perry’s staff was slimmed down to one employee in Iowa and South Carolina, the minimum requirement to participate in the second GOP presidential debate in California next week.
This was Perry’s second bid for the White House. His first, in 2012, ended after a series of difficult debate appearances.