WASHINGTON: Massa­chusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, once a frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, ended her campaign on Thursday, setting up a two-man duel between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.

“I’m suspending our campaign for president,” the 70-year-old progressive lawmaker said in remarks to her campaign staff.

“I may not be in the race for President in 2020, but this fight — our fight — is not over,” Warren said. “And our place in this fight has not ended.”

Warren did not announce any immediate plans to endorse either of the remaining major candidates — the 77-year-old former vice president Biden, or the 78-year-old leftist senator from Vermont, Sanders.

Warren’s withdrawal from the race for the top spot on the Democratic ticket against President Donald Trump in November comes after she failed to win a single state on Super Tuesday, including her own.

Her decision to drop out comes one day after that of billionaire former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who quit on Wednesday after a disappointing Super Tuesday performance and endorsed Biden.

Trump responded to Warren’s withdrawal with a tweet mocking her and Bloomberg.

“Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren, who was going nowhere except into Mini Mike’s head, just dropped out of the Democrat Primary...THREE DAYS TOO LATE,” Trump said.

“She cost Crazy Bernie, at least, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas,” the president said of three of the states at stake on Super Tuesday. “Probably cost him the nomination! Came in third in Mass.”

Warren led some national polls last summer but she never managed to build a broad coalition to carry her through to success in the primaries, finishing behind fellow progressive Sanders and the moderate Biden in 14 states on Super Tuesday.

Warren finished third in her home state of Massachusetts behind Biden and Sanders.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2020