Graham drops out of presidential race

“I’m suspending my campaign but never my commitment to achieving security through strength”, Graham said in a message on his campaign website.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) may not have gained much traction in the presidential campaign.

By leaving the race on Monday, Graham was able to remove his name from his home state’s primary ballot, creating the sort of free-for-all that candidates such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio have desired for months.

Released after President Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney in 2012, the Republican National Committee’s Growth and Opportunity Project said the GOP must “embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform” to broaden its appeal among Hispanic voters. He had run “a campaign we can be proud of” that was focused on the nation’s security. “At that time, no one stepped forward to join me”, Graham said.

“Today, most of my fellow candidates have come to recognise this is what’s needed to secure our homeland”.

While Graham strung together a set of forceful debate performances, he was always relegated to the “undercard” debates, which included the lowest-polling candidates and garnered considerably less attention than the main events.

When he filed his candidacy for the primary in November, Graham wondered if the reliance on national polls for debate standing will mean that 2016 will be the final meaningful first-in-the-nation primary for New Hampshire.

But in what has become the coarse game of politics, Graham’s gentility will be missed.

Graham, a close friend of 2008 GOP nominee John McCain, is one of the most prominent foreign policy hawks in the Senate.

McCain held hundreds of town halls in New Hampshire during his two campaigns – and in that way, Graham was modeling his campaign after McCain’s approach. “I think we’ve done well in the debates, it’s just hard to break through because the buzz doesn’t last very long”.

“This race didn’t fit him”, Woodard said.

Graham did make headlines over the past six months, battling out with Donald Trump and his fascistic, anti-Muslim statements.

South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Matt Moore praised Graham for “being the first South Carolinian in over 60 years to seriously compete for the White House”.