US Republican Rand Paul suspends 2016 White House campaign

Rand Paul is suspending his campaign for president after a disappointing finish in Iowa, turning his focus now to his Senate re-election bid.

In the Republican race, the libertarian-leaning Paul finished in fifth place in Iowa with 4.5 percent of the vote.

“It’s been an incredible honor to run a principled campaign for the White House”, Paul said in a statement to the Washington Post. “Today, I will end where I began, ready and willing to fight for the cause of Liberty”, Paul said in a statement. Paul is dropping out of the 2016 race for president.

Paul had pushed for Kentucky to move to a caucus format for selecting its presidential nominee, because that was the only way he could be on the ballot as a candidate for president and U.S. Senate.

Regardless, there will be one less voice standing up to the pro-war and “Big Brother”-styled inclinations of the federal government, and that concerns many in the liberty movement, following today’s announcement by Rand Paul”.

Paul is the latest candidate to announce his withdrawal from the race after results from Iowa’s caucuses filtered in Monday. That contest launched the parties’ process to nominate candidates for the November election. But his appeals to reject American political dynasties and “to take our country back” were ultimately out-shouted by billionaire Donald Trump and relentlessly hawked by Sen.

Also discordant was Paul’s non-interventionist foreign policy, especially after Islamist-inspired attacks in Paris, San Bernadino, Calif. and elsewhere flared around the globe in 2015.

Paul’s campaign initially seemed to capture the anti-establishment mood clearly settling over the electorate.

Paul, 53, was elected to the Senate in 2010 as part of the GOP’s tea party wave.

In October, Paul embarked on an online event in which he answered hostile questions from Twitter users. That Rand Paul squandered it by making certain concessions or not having a strong enough ground game in Iowa.