Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced Tuesday that he is suspending his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination after failing to register. Iowa caucuses.
Hutchinson won 0.2% of the vote in Monday’s caucuses, finishing a distant sixth after an unappealing anti-Trump campaign for the veteran Republican in the new GOP.
“My message of being a principled Republican with experience and telling the truth about the incumbent didn’t sell in Iowa,” Hutchinson said. “I stand by my campaign.”
Hutchinson spent much of his campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he has been a staunch critic of Trump, even suggesting the former president could be disqualified from running in 2024 under the 14th Amendment. candidates engaged in rebellion.
“When you look at the four indictments and the fact that everybody can’t say what each of those charges is, they know it’s not good for our country and nobody can run our country under that kind of pressure, especially with the mindset that he wants to get revenge as the next president,” Hutchinson said. he said in an interview with NBC News. “And so if anyone is going to veer off course, it should be Donald Trump.”
On the campaign trail, Hutchinson highlighted his two terms as governor of Arkansas and previous leadership roles at the Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration. While calling for the United States to become more energy independent, Hutchinson also criticized the Biden administration’s economic and border policies.
Hutchinson met the Republican National Committee’s voting threshold to qualify for the party’s first debate in Milwaukee in August, but he did not meet the higher voting requirements for subsequent debates.
Before the second debate, Hutchinson told NBC News that he would reconsider his candidacy if his poll numbers did not improve by the end of the fall.
“Of course, if I don’t get to 4% in the national or early state polls by Thanksgiving, then I have to reevaluate the campaign,” Hutchinson said in September.