Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden.
Now only two major candidates – Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) – remain in the race.
Related: Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign refuses to respond to LGBTQ questionnaire
In a video for her supporters, Gabbard talked about the current “unprecedented global crisis.”
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“Throughout my life and throughout this campaign, my motivation has been to serve God, our country, and the American people as best I can,” she said, adding that she thinks the best way she can do that now is to continue to represent Hawaii in Congress and in the National Guard.
“It’s clear that Democratic primary voters have chosen Vice President Joe Biden to be the person who will take on President Trump in the general election,” she said. “I know that [Biden] has a good heart and that he’s motivated by his love for our country.”
Important announcement.
From Oahu, Hawaiʻi. #StandWithTulsi pic.twitter.com/XcHshtgVYA— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 19, 2020
Gabbard struggled to get much traction in the primary, securing only two delegates from the primary in American Samoa, putting her in seventh place behind Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who had won seven delegates before she dropped out of the primary several weeks ago.
Gabbard faced criticism during the primary for her past as an anti-LGBTQ extremist.
Before she was elected to Congress, she worked for one of her father’s anti-LGBTQ organizations, the Alliance for Traditional Marriage, which she later cited as a positive experience when she ran for the state legislature in 2002.
“Working with my father, Mike Gabbard, and others to pass a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage, I learned that real leaders are willing to make personal sacrifices for the common good,” she told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin at the time.
The Alliance for Traditional Marriage’s website, which appears to have been written by Gabbard’s father, had an FAQ that promoted conversion therapy, telling people that “a person can walk away from homosexuality if they are repentant, sincere, and determined” and “for those who experience the urge for sexual activity with someone of the same sex, it’s possible to overcome those sexual desires, no matter how powerful they may be.”
When asked about this, she said that she personally never supported conversion therapy and in early 2019 she made a video apologizing for her anti-LGBTQ past. She said that her views had changed, but she was still accusing Democrats of “fomenting religious bigotry” for saying that Christian judges should not impose their religious beliefs on the others when it comes to abortion.
Biden won the most delegates in all three of this past Tuesday’s primaries in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois, widening the delegate gap between him and Sanders. In the 10 primaries held after Super Tuesday, Sanders has only won North Dakota and the Northern Mariana Islands, giving him a total so far of 885 delegates to Biden’s 1180.
Yesterday, Axios reported that the Sanders’s campaign deactivated their Facebook ads. While the campaign has not said why the ads were deactivated, it was the same thing Pete Buttigieg’s and Michael Bloomberg’s campaigns did just before they ended.
