Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb quit his run for the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, saying his views were out of sync with Democratic Party hierarchy and he was considering a run as an independent.
As the first casualty of the Democrats’ contest, Mr. Webb’s absence will have negligible effect on the race other than making slightly more room for a run by Vice President Joseph R. Biden. The vice president is expected to soon make his long-awaited announcement about whether he will join the contest and pose a significant threat to front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination.
Mr. Webb consistently finished near the bottom in the polls and suffered from poor fundraising and a skeleton campaign staff. He also lacked an aggressive presence on the campaign trail, with only a handful of events in early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
His press conference to announce his withdraw from the race was one of the largest, if not the largest press event of his short-lived campaign.
He blamed the poor performance of his campaign on the leftward drift of the Democratic Party and the party establishment’s focus on one candidate — Mrs. Clinton — that he said made it difficult for him to gain traction. He insisted that his views were more in line with the vast majority of American voters, though not the party base or the party elite.
“I fully accept that my views on many issues are not compatible with the power structure and the nominating base of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Webb said at a press conference in Washington.
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“That party is filled with millions of dedicated, hard-working Americans. But its hierarchy is not comfortable with many of the policies that I have laid forth, and frankly I am not that comfortable with many of theirs,” he said. “I hold strong views about where the country needs to go. I will never change these views in order to adapt to a party platform as a way to get nominated for the presidency.”
He noted that about 42 percent of the American electorate identify themselves as independents, more than identify with either party.
A Gallup poll last year found that 42 percent identify as independents, 31 percent identify as Democrats and 25 percent identify as Republicans.
Mr. Webb’s exit from the race followed a querulous performance last week in the first Democratic presidential debate last week in Las Vegas. During the debate, he griped about not getting enough questions or enough speaking time. Afterwards, he complained that the event was “rigged” in favor of front-runner Mrs. Clinton and her closest rival, Sen. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent and avowed socialist.
Mr. Webb, a decorated Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War who also served as secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, always stood out within the Democratic Party for his moderate or sometimes conservative views.
During the campaign, he broke with fellow Democratic candidates to voice misgivings about affirmative action, the Black Lives Matter movement and the rush to remove the Confederate battle flag from every display after a shooting massacre at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
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He also supports gun rights.
Mr. Webb said that he does not fit cleanly into the Republican Party either, citing his longtime support of labor unions.
Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said that Mr. Webb’s exit demonstrated that the extreme left wing had taken over the other party.
“Rather than move to the center following last November’s historic losses, Democrats are racing to the fringe and proposing policies that make President Obama look like a moderate,” he said in a statement. “After all, a self-avowed socialist is the leading candidate of the Democrat Party in key early states and Hillary Clinton is flip flopping on issue after issue just to keep up. With Senator Webb’s departure, it’s clear the Democrat Party is moving further to the extreme left and far away from mainstream Americans.”
The other Democratic candidates did not issue statements about Mr. Webb’s decision.
His departure is not expected to shake up the dynamics of the race, with Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders scoring double-digits in the polls while Mr. Webb and the other long-shot candidates each garnering less than 2 percent of the vote.
Mr. Webb’s supporters in the presidential race, if they remain in the Democratic fold, likely would gravitate toward Mr. Biden or Mrs. Clinton rather that the other candidates who have solidly liberal agendas.
A post-debate poll by CNN/ORC showed Mr. Webb with 1 percent of the vote among Democratic voters, with former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee and Harvard professor Larry Lessig each receiving less than 1 percent.
Mrs. Clinton led the field with 45 percent, followed by Mr. Sanders with 29 percent and Mr. Biden, who has not announced whether he will join the race, with 18 percent.
At the press conference, Mr. Webb vowed to remain a force in American politics and possibly the presidential race.
“I am not going away. I am thinking through all my options,” he said.
Mr. Webb gave no timeline for making a decision about launching a campaign as an independent. He said that he was confident that as an independent he would not have the same difficulty raising money or building a camping operation that he suffered within the Democratic Party’s nominating process.
After quitting an uphill battle for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Webb faces a much steeper climb as an independent. An independent has never won the White House in modern history.
Still, Mr. Webb remained confident in his ability to rally the country’s independent voters, which account for a larger share of the electorate than voters who identify as Democratic or Republican. He said that if he gets an independent run off the ground, he expected to be able to beat both Mrs. Clinton and GOP front-runner Donald Trump in the general election.
“I honestly would see us beating both of them,” he said.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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