One of the less-than-one-percenters has dropped out of the GOP primary race, but this one is just a bit different than the others.
Larry Elder has suspended his campaign, throwing his support behind Donald Trump.
Thursday evening, Elder announced that he had decided to suspend his campaign.
This was a long time coming, as he was barely getting noticed in polling and had not participated in any of the debates, nor would he be qualifying for the third debate.
Elder stated:
"Throughout 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 — 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.
"The 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. I hope that my campaign has helped shine a light on these critical issues and sparked important conversations about how we can solve them."
Elder, after dropping out of the race, threw his support behind Donald Trump…
It's time to unite behind @realDonaldTrump to beat Joe Biden! pic.twitter.com/VXw6pyem2d
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) October 26, 2023
Normally, for a candidate with such little support, this would mean nothing, but that is not the case here.
Polling for Trump if he has a black VP goes through the roof among black voters, and Elder has now put himself into that conversation.
I have long stated that Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) would be wise to drop out and join forces with Trump, but he has given no inclination that he will be doing that, even though his campaign seems to be winding down.
Scott will eventually drop out, but this recent feud between DeSantis and Haley has muddied the picture.
Scott may decide to team up with one of them to mount a last-minute attack against Trump just before South Carolina votes, and if he does that, I would have to think that Trump would seriously consider Elder as a running mate.
Elder is a bit of a nutcase, and he loves to whine about the system being stacked against him.
The qualifiers for debates have been relatively the same for years, but he could not meet the minimum, and he was polling at less than 1%. Instead of admitting this campaign was nothing more than hubris, he chose to attack.
He stated:
"I 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."
Elder could be attractive to Trump as a VP because, like Trump, he loves to poke the bear, and he checks a major box for Trump to really take a chunk out of Biden's base.
Just keep an eye on what Scott does over the next month or so because this could be much ado about nothing. But, if Scott looks elsewhere, Elder could become a serious player in this election.
