American entrepreneur, philanthropist, author and lawyer Andrew Yang has suspended his political campaign and withdrawn from the presidential candidate race. Thus Andrew Yang's activities for US Presidential election 2020 have come to a halt.
Son of immigrants from Taiwan, Yang grew up in New York. He was selected as "Champion of Change" in 2011 by the Obama government and "Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship," in 2015. Yang started his political campaign in 2017 after he quit VFA the company he founded where he recruited top college graduates for a two-year fellowship program at startups in developing cities across the United States.
Here are 6 reasons why Andrew Yang quit the Presidential race:
1) The Math problem
Andrew Yang is a Mathematics expert. He has dealt with numbers for decades in his career. While suspending his campaign, Yang had said that he was a math guy and the numbers clearly showed that he was not going to win this race.
2) Donations
Speaking about donations he had received to fight the election, Yang said that he does not want to accept donations for a race that he will not win. In the first quarter of 2019, Yang had got $ 1.7 million donations, in the second it was $ 2.8 million, in the third $ 10 million and in the fourth quarter he got $ 16.5 million as a fundraiser. In total, Yang received donations from about 400,000 donors, with 75 percent of being small donors with $ 200 or less. Thus, he did not want to take any more money from his sponsors.
3) Performance at Iowa and New Hampshire
In Iowa, Yang succeeded in getting only one percent of the total votes. He had spent two weeks touring the region and spending a whopping amount on the campaign here. In New Hampshire, the vote share he won was 2.8 percent. This was also disappointing when considering the amount of money spent. It is said that Yang had to lay off staff as he looked to trim his campaign's costs after looking at the result at Iowa.
4) Belief in message sent across
Yang said that contesting was a very important decision he had made and had every intention of continuing in the race until the end. But looking at the results in Iowa and New Hampshire, he started believing that staying in the race will not strengthen his campaign or chances of his winning. He considered this as the message sent across by the voters for now.
5) Worst-case scenario
The Iowa results of last week had made Yang tensed about the future course of the campaign. He had said if he does not succeed in New Hampshire, there will be resentment, especially if it ends up being the worst-case scenario. Accordingly, he ended up last in the race making it the worst-case scenario.
6) Credibility failed to materialize
Yang spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertisements in the closing weeks of the campaign. He wished for a top-five finish to earn credibility for future contests. However, results of Iowa and New Hampshire were not a success and even advertisements failed to materialize his credibility into performance.
Slogans, policies promised by Yang
While running for the post, Yang had championed policy positions including freedom dividend, universal basic income, programs to address automation and the legalization of marijuana etc.
His supporters and members of his team known as Yang Gang or Yangsters hope that Yang will have a future role in democratic politics and administration. Yang's slogans for campaigning included Not Left, Not Right, Forward; Humanity First; Make America Think harder (MATH).
