Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, the only Latinx candidate in the field, has ended his campaign for president after low polling numbers and difficulty raising the excessive amount of money needed to compete for a chance to govern the country.
“I’m so proud of the campaign we’ve run together. We’ve shaped the conversation on so many important issues in this race. Stood up for the most vulnerable people, and given a voice to those who are often forgotten,” Castro said in the video.
“But with only a month until the Iowa caucuses and given the circumstances of this campaign season, I’ve determined that it simply isn’t our time,” he said.
According to CNBC, despite being a charismatic speaker on the debate stage and campaigning on a platform that included “reforming immigration policy and the criminal justice system,” Castro was facing an uphill battle that was proving insurmountable as he rarely rose above 2 percent support in polls.
The former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, had a tough time raising money as he was seeing just a fraction of the numbers that big-name frontrunners Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg have been bringing in.
From CNBC:
Castro, whose twin brother Joaquin is a Texas congressman, often focused on his history as a child of Mexican immigrants and presented himself as the candidate who best represented the Hispanic community.
He was the first presidential candidate to release plans to address indigenous peoples—promising to increase funding for health care, education and housing and establish a White House Council on Indigenous Communities—and animal welfare—making animal abuse a federal crime, ending the euthanasia of healthy animals in shelters and improving standards for animal welfare in farming practices.
In October, Castro noted that if he couldn’t raise some $800,000 by the end of the month he’d leave the race. He limped toward that goal but still failed to make the November debate stage.