Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has dropped out of the 2016 race for president, narrowing a crowded Republican field to 14 hopefuls.
Mr Jindal, the nation's first elected Indian-American governor, did not immediately endorse any other candidate.
"I've come to the realisation that this is not my time," he told Fox News as he announced the decision to suspend his campaign.
"We spent a lot of time developing detailed policy papers.
"Given this crazy, unpredictable election season, clearly there wasn't an interest in those policy papers."
He had courted evangelical voters in the early primary voting state of Iowa, but was unable gain traction against rivals such as Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
Mr Jindal tried to trip up the front-runners, once dedicating a whole news conference to trashing Mr Trump's fitness for office.
But his anaemic poll numbers meant he did not qualify for the main debate stages and the Jindal campaign had just $261,000 (£171,000) on hand last month.
The 44-year-old political wunderkind was first elected governor in 2007 and was highly popular at first.
But in 2009 he was judged even by fellow Republicans to have fluffed the party's televised response to President Barack Obama's first address to Congress.
Mr Jindal, who is out of office in January because of term limits, said he will work with a think tank he started a few years ago to deliver "a blueprint for making this the American century".
No comments:
Post a Comment