ABOVE: Julian Castro, Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key.
Faced with continued difficulties in getting his campaign off the ground, Democratic candidate Julian Castro, the only Hispanic contender in the 2020 crowd, announced Thursday he has suspended his presidential bid.
“It’s with profound gratitude to all of our supporters that I suspend my campaign for president today,” Castro wrote on Twitter. “I’m so proud of everything we’ve accomplished together. I’m going to keep fighting for an America where everyone counts — I hope you’ll join me in that fight.”
Castro had struggled with his candidacy and languished at around 1 percent in polling. Many Democrats were turned off by Castro in a debate performance when he appeared to mock Joseph Biden, the current front-runner in the primary, over his age. Castro announces he has dropped his presidential bid on the same day other candidate are trumpeting their fundraising totals for the fourth quarter of 2019.
A key point in Castro’s candidacy was his LGBTQ work as secretary of housing and urban development in the Obama administration, when he oversaw the expansion of the Fair Housing Rule to ensure taxpayer-funded homeless shelters couldn’t turn away transgender people based on their gender identity.
During the Trump administration, however, Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Ben Carson, has withheld guidance to shelters on this expanded rule and proposed a regulatory change that would allow exemptions for shelters to discriminate against homeless shelters based on religious objections and other reasons.
Castro touted his commitment to the LGBTQ community at the presidential forum hosted last year by GLAAD, which won him the support of at least LGBTQ person, as well as the Human Rights Campaign forum.
