Senator Lindsey Graham Drops Out of Presidential Race

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R, SC) announced Monday that he was suspending his presidential campaign.

Earlier this month, in a CNN interview, Graham said, “Do you know how you make America great again?”

“I can’t tell you how frustrating it has been to spend all this time and effort preparing myself to be commander in chief and be put at the kiddie table”, he said. In an email sent to supporters shortly afterward, Graham said, “the centerpiece of my campaign has been securing our nation”.

Despite his hawkish positions during a time of increasing threats to the homeland and the ability to claim one of the three early primary states as his home, Graham failed to gain traction in the race. Stuck in single digits, Graham never caught on even among establishment Republicans, who are mostly split among at least four other candidates, leaving Trump with a commanding lead in national polls.

“With Senator Lindsey Graham’s announcement, Republicans lost our most qualified, thoughtful, fearless and honest presidential candidate, not to mention the candidate with the best (and it seemed sometimes the only) sense of humor”.

Graham’s interventionist foreign policy has been at the fore of his candidacy, and he has helped shape the conversation on the campaign trail, particularly when it came to national security.

Graham is the fourth Republican candidate to quit the presidential race following former Texas governor Rick Perry, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

Graham also held to a sensible approach to immigration, calling for both improvements in border security and a path to legal status for the estimated 11 million people living here illegally.

Christie has made just six campaign visits to the Palmetto State, by far the fewest of the remaining GOP presidential candidates, and he has just one operative working there, though the campaign declined to name the staffer for a story in Politico. “At that time, no one stepped forward to join me”.

Senator Graham often promoted his experience in the Middle East, saying he made 36 trips to the region, and said the next USA president must have a deft understanding of the conflicts there. “This is about who we are as a party, where do we want to go, where do we take the country”.

Graham’s departure could trigger a winnowing of the Republican field, with other long shots like former New York Gov. George Pataki – and potentially former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Pennsylvania Sen.