Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who ran his campaign on fighting climate change, is withdrawing from the Democratic presidential primary race.
"It's become clear that I'm not going to be carrying the ball. I'm not going to be the president, so I'm withdrawing tonight from the race," Inslee told MSNBC's 'The Rachel Maddow Show' on Wednesday evening.
Governor Inslee launched his presidential campaign with a campaign to raise awareness about climate change and repeatedly stressed that fighting the effects of global warming is and will be his primary goal.
Other Democratic candidates have also advocated for fighting climate change, but none more so than Inslee.
Earlier this year, Greenpeace ranked the Democratic 2020 hopefuls, concluding that Inslee deserves the top marks and an A- rating, after proposing a $9 trillion climate change solution.
Inslee has failed to make it to the CNN climate town hall debate scheduled for next month because he hadn't reached 2 percent in the polls in at least four Democratic National Committee (DNC)-approved polls conducted over the past month.
Higher polling Democratic hopefuls were quick to praise Inslee after he announced his withdrawal.
"Few leaders have done more to shine a light on the climate crisis than @JayInslee. His voice will be missed in this primary but I know he will continue this fight," Kamala Harris tweeted.
Bernie Sanders also praised Inslee: "Congratulations to @JayInslee on his impactful campaign to bring the climate crisis to the forefront of the national conversation. There is no more important issue facing humanity. Together we will work to pass a Green New Deal and create millions of jobs."
Sanders also launched today a US$16-trillion Green New Deal commitment, and took aim at oil executives, saying that "Fossil fuel executives knew decades ago that climate change was real yet funded denialism. The #GreenNewDeal holds them fully accountable by:
-Ending ALL subsidies to the fossil fuel industry
-Making them pay for their pollution
-Suing and prosecuting them for damage they caused."
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More