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The
68-year-old Inslee, speaking on MSNBC, said it had become clear
he would not be the party's standard-bearer and that he was
pulling out of the race. Inslee announced his bid for the
Democratic nomination on March 1.
"It's become clear that I'm not going to be carrying the ball,
I'm not going to be the president, so I'm withdrawing tonight
from the race," Inslee said in an interview on MSNBC.
Democrats are vying for their party's nomination to face
Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election.
Inslee, whose withdrawal brings the crowded ranks of Democratic
candidates to 22, had struggled to break out of the bottom of
the pack, with some polls showing him running last in the large
field. He was the second Democrat this month to drop out of the
race, after former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper withdrew
last Thursday.
Inslee released a sweeping plan in June to reclaim U.S.
leadership in the fight against climate change that included
proposals to resettle hundreds of thousands of climate refugees,
and raise barriers to fossil-fuel imports.
His efforts drew praise from his Democratic competitors in the
presidential race on Wednesday night.
"Thank you @JayInslee for fighting every day to make sure that
climate change remains a primary focus of the election," Senator
Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter.
Sen. Bernie Sanders also praised Inslee's efforts, saying,
"There is no more important issue facing humanity."
Inslee said in an email to supporters that polls had shown he
was not popular enough to be invited to the party's fall
debates, and that his candidacy could not survive being left out
of those high-profile events.
"It became clear that we would not meet the DNC's polling
threshold, thus we would not have been invited to the fall
debates," Inslee said. "As a result, I don't believe we can
compete for the attention and exposure needed to have a
reasonable shot at the nomination."
Painfully, perhaps, for a candidate who staked his bid on
climate change, Inslee's polling numbers of around 1 percent
also appeared on track to exclude him from a televised town hall
on climate issues to be held by CNN. The cable news network said
candidates would need to win the support of 2% of likely voters
in four polls by next week.
Inslee promised to continue to fight for political action on
climate change, vowing to hold the next president accountable
for adopting a plan.
Several other Democratic candidates, including front-runner Joe
Biden, have outlined similar goals of eliminating U.S. emissions
of the greenhouse gases scientists blame for the effects of
climate change, like sea level rise, droughts, floods and more
frequent powerful storms.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert, Mohammad Zargham and Sharon
Bernstein; Writing by David Alexander and Sharon Bernstein;
Editing by Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)
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