Ben Carson announced on Wednesday that he sees no “political path forward,” will not attend tonight’s GOP debate in his hometown of Detroit and, effectively, has dropped his 2016 presidential bid.
The retired neurosurgeon and his aides reportedly reached a decision after a staff meeting yesterday in Baltimore following a disappointing finish on Super Tuesday. Carson’s campaign chairman, Bob Dees, said in an e-mail to supporters that “political efforts must come to a close.”
“We have often said that ‘reality is our friend.’ The reality is that we together have been on an amazing journey—the right candidate for the right cause for the right reasons at the right time,” Dees wrote. “The reality is that our political efforts must come to a close.”
Carson said he will go into more detail about the decision tomorrow at a Conservative Political Action Committee Conference in Washington, D.C.
What once appeared to be a promising campaign for the first-time political candidate has come to an end, after encouraging early months leading to the Iowa Caucuses, but failure to win any of the primaries or to collect a sufficient number of delegates. Counting the Super Tuesday results, Carson had amassed only six Republican delegates.
Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business advisor, said it is clear that front-runner Donald Trump has all but secured the Republican nomination.
“Everyone needs to come to the realization that Donald Trump will be the nominee, when it’s all said and done,” Williams said. “And that’s the reality. I know [some candidates] they’re saying they have the best chance of toppling Trump, but let’s admit it, they have no pathway either. And every event, let’s admit it, Trump has done well … since Iowa, he has been steamrolling.”
Carson never made a cogent argument for his candidacy, believe campaign insiders. He ran mostly on his biography rather than policy and political views. Carson had an impressive story to tell—overcoming a troubled youth in inner-city Detroit, becoming a star student and world-class neurosurgeon (including international acclaim for separating conjoined twins)—but his platform was eclipsed by the Trump juggernaut. His debate performances did not help his candidacy, because he was seen often halting in his speech patterns in a forum that prizes quick and snappy soundbites. And his command of policy at times seemed shaky such as asserting that the Chinese were in Syria, a claim disputed by the White House. Carson often deflected questions about how he would confront ISIS and even on healthcare—his profession—he never put forth specifics beyond saying that ObamaCare should be overturned.
Carson’s campaign also suffered internal conflicts. In the run up to the Iowa Caucuses, some top advisors left the campaign, while some former staffers went public in their criticism of Carson as a candidate and of his campaign structure.
On Wednesday, GOP operatives were reportedly looking to remove Carson from the race as they sought to eliminate any obstacles to finding a challenger to Trump. Some GOP insiders have suggested that Carson run for the U.S. Senate in Florida.
Williams said the Florida idea may not get much traction.
“Isn’t it flattering that people in Florida think so highly of Dr. Carson that they would want him to run for the Senate seat in Florida?,” Williams said. “I think they wanted him to run in Florida, because they wanted him out of the race. I don’t need to advise him on that because I already know that he has no interest in that. Remember, they tried to get him to do the same in Maryland, so this is not the first time he’s been approached about this.”
