Long-shot Republican presidential candidate Larry Elder announced Thursday evening that he had suspended his campaign and immediately endorsed former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Elder expressed gratitude for his supporters and said he was honored by their enthusiasm and grassroots support. He further explained that after assessing his campaign and the state of the race, he had made the \u2018difficult decision\u2019 to suspend his campaign.<\/p>\n
\u2018Throughout my campaign, I have been steadfast in my belief that the biggest issues facing our nation are the crisis of fatherlessness, the dangerous lie that America is systemically racist, the need for an amendment to the constitution to set federal spending to a fixed percentage of the GDP \u2014 otherwise government gets bigger whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, and the need to remove the Soros-backed DAs across the country who refuse to enforce the law,\u2019 he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u2018The breakdown of the family structure and the absence of positive father figures in the lives of many children have far-reaching consequences for our society, including the crime wave we are currently seeing in America today,\u2019 he continued. \u2018I hope that my campaign has helped shine a light on these critical issues and sparked important conversations about how we can solve them.\u2019<\/p>\n
Elder \u2014 a conservative talk radio host who previously ran as a recall candidate to replace Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom \u2014 announced he would run for president in April during an interview with Fox News. He explained that he believed he had a \u2018moral, religious and a patriotic duty\u2019 to enter the race.<\/p>\n
In August, Elder made waves after he threatened to sue the Republican National Committee (RNC) for not including him in the first GOP debate. While the RNC determined Elder had failed to meet the required threshold for number of individual donors and polling, he accused them of purposely silencing him.<\/p>\n
\u2018I said from the beginning that it appeared the rules of the game were rigged, little did we know just how rigged it is. For some reason, the establishment leaders at the RNC are afraid of having my voice on the debate stage,\u2019 he said in an X post at the time.<\/p>\n