What benefit is there to pulling out of the presidential race before Super Tuesday?

Question

In the last couple of days, in the wake of the South Carolina primary, first Pete Buttigieg & now Amy Klobuchar have "suspended" their campaigns. This has come notably just before Super Tuesday, where about a third of all delegates are allocated.

What could the benefit possibly be to these now ex-candidates of pulling out of the race just days before this key event? Surely it would make more sense to wait and see if a change in their fortunes on Tuesday, however unlikely, could re-energise their campaigns?

Answer 1

At least in the case of Pete Buttigieg, his recent statements seem to make pretty clear that he's stopped to provide room for Biden to overtake Sanders.

CNN coverage

"When I ran for president we made it clear that the whole idea was about rallying the country together to defeat Donald Trump and to win the era for the values that we share," Buttigieg said at a campaign stop.

"And that was always a goal that was much bigger than me becoming president and it is in the name of that very same goal that I am delighted to endorse and support Joe Biden for President."

The endorsement is a boon for the former vice president, and comes at the same time that Amy Klobuchar is ending her campaign and backing Biden. The Minnesota senator will officially make her endorsement on Monday night in Dallas, too, a campaign aide told CNN.

The endorsements represent a coalescing of the more moderate wing of the Democratic Party around Biden and a rejection of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who -- after strong showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada -- represents the most significant challenge for Biden.

There have been numerous articles about the concerns of Democratic Party leaders about Sanders' ability to beat Trump, and what that could mean longer term.

The NYTimes has an article that shows Sanders will not get an automatic nod if he arrives at the party conference with a plurality rather than a majority of delegates. In terms of how this then plays back to the wider public it is obviously better if Sanders' is only narrowly ahead rather than way out in front of a divided "moderate" vote.

And fairly obviously Buttigieg is quite young. Dropping out before things get too heated gains him support within the party and positions him for the future.

While Buttigieg may have failed to win outright in 2020, the fact that he made it as far as he did is a remarkable success. He went from being a nobody nationally to a household name among Democratic primary voters — a result that bodes well for the 38-year-old’s likely long future in Democratic politics.

As the comments have noted, both Klobuchar and Bloomberg (who dropped out immediately after Super Tuesday) have explicitly endorsed Biden. Bloomberg's quote seems the most direct

"I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden," Bloomberg said in a statement.

Answer 2

Most of the answers are good ones, but they fail to acknowledge the political/tactical reason for dropping out BEFORE Super Tuesday.

That reason? The 15% threshold.

Democratic primary rules dictate that a candidate must receive at least 15% of the state's votes in order to get any delegates at all, and the delegates are proportionately divvied out as if those less-than-15% people weren't even in the race. So in states like Minnesota and Maine where Biden is polling around 10%, those 10% of Biden voters would basically have their votes thrown away. Allowing Biden to overtake that 15% threshold in every state on Super Tuesday means that Biden can totally overtake Sanders by bleeding off delegates.

Answer 3

In addition to wanting to consolidate the "moderate" field, there is the fact that this is also a political favor to the rest of the field that may pay dividends later. Both Biden and Sanders will benefit from the fact that there's new voters in play.

In 2016, Ben Carson dropped out after Super Tuesday. He was in much the same boat as Buttigieg and Klobuchar, with poor polling. He would endorse Ted Cruz, who did not ultimately win the nomination. After Trump won, Carson was named Housing and Urban Development secretary.

If any Democrat wins the Presidency, they may find a new home in their administration. If Biden himself wins, they may find themselves in a cabinet position. This is common to both parties.

Answer 4

The benefit of dropping out is that senators don't want to be seen losing their home states. It is seen as very humiliating. However, that is not the full story. Both Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren were at risk of losing their home states to Bernie Sanders, but only the former dropped out. And Buttigieg isn't a senator at all so the humiliation factor doesn't apply to him.

Roughly, the candidates in the Democratic primary can be grouped into the "moderates" and the "progressives." Bloomberg, Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar are the moderates and the progressives are Sanders and Warren. Progressive voters are expected to cast their votes on progressive candidates and moderate voters on moderate candidates.

So when two moderate candidates drop out, their votes are likely to flock to either of the remaining two. This is especially true since they both endorsed Biden. Thus the moderate vote consolidates around Biden. That makes it harder for Sanders to reach the Democratic convention in Milwaukee with more than half of all delegates, leading to a contested convention. That activates the superdelegates' votes who are expected to vote for Biden (or Bloomberg). Thus depriving Sanders of the nomination.

Consolidation to Biden isn't the only reason the two moderates dropped out now. There are technical reasons too. Each state appropriates two types of delegates; state delegates and county delegates. For a candidate to get state delegates, that candidate has to receive more than 15% of the popular vote in that state. In many of the Super Tuesday states holding primaries today, Biden was polling at around the 15% mark, meaning that he would have gotten no state delegates in many states. Now with the sudden dropout of Buttigieg and Klobuchar he is likely to get more than 15% and thus get state delegates.

This is especially important in California, the state with the most delegates with the primary on Super Tuesday. Prior to the moderate candidates dropping out, only Sanders and Warren polled above 15% meaning that they both would have received a massive number of delegates and Biden very few. But now Biden will almost certainly get above 15% and pick up quite a few state delegates.

Why didn't Warren drop out?

Conversely, if Warren had dropped out that would have benefited Sanders immensely because they are competing for the same group of progressive voters. Super Tuesday would have been a blowout for him and the race would practically have been over. A candidate that takes a big lead on Super Tuesday is a heavy favorite to the nomination.

Given that both Warren and Sanders see themselves as progressives it would have made sense for her to drop out. The reason why she hasn't done so is unclear and there may be backroom deals involved.

Only a few weeks ago her campaign was in dire straits, but she unexpectedly received the backing of a SuperPAC whose donors are unknown. The $14 million in ads the SuperPAC purchased for her rejuvenated her campaign.

It is also possible that she believes she can win the nomination through a contested convention. However, that seems very unlikely given that she is expected to pick up only a small fraction of all available delegates.

Answer 5

Some of this is stated in other answers but this is a bit different take

1. They're more concerned with seeing Sanders lose, than winning themselves. Setting aside the question of whether they're right or not, they may place the good of the nation over the personal good, and believe a Sanders victory wouldn't be for the good of the nation either because he's more likely to lose to Trump or that his policies would be as damaging as Trump's.

2. By doing Biden a "favor" they can increase the chances of an administration role

3. They can--I believe--keep their funds raised for future political projects. This could be a huge help in their next election.

4. In theory they could stop spending money and send everyone home and simply stay on the ballots but then they'll be remembered as a loser.

5. They're absolutely exhausted, after doing this campaigning all over the country, while holding down their day job. If it's hopeless, just go home.

6. (stealing this from another answer) a state-level politician (governor or senator) losing their state could harm their future electability. A mayor or representative wouldn't be so worried on this point.

Answer 6

A secondary reason that Pete dropped out when he did (per staffers posting on Twitter) is that he wanted to give all his paid staffers a month's pay and health insurance to tide them over to their next job.

Answer 7

The benefit to a candidate of pulling out of the race before Super Tuesday is that their votes in the states that vote in the primaries on Super Tuesday can go to the candidate that is the next most similar to themselves.

If a candidate knows that they have no reasonable chance of winning the nomination, then it makes perfect sense for them to drop out of the race before Super Tuesday in order to keep from splitting the votes of like-minded voters between multiple candidates.

The problem here is that delegates are not allocated in direct proportion to the popular vote among all of the candidates within a given state. Instead, for the Democratic primaries, candidates with less than 15% of the vote get no delegates at all, effectively making the votes of the people who voted for them not count at all when they could have otherwise counted toward the candidate next most like themselves if the candidate dropped out before the primary.

The Republican primaries in 2016 had many states that were even worse than that: the candidate with a mere plurality of the popular vote received nearly all or even all of the state's delegates. Since there were still 4 more-or-less establishment candidates left in the race by Super Tuesday, those 4 managed to split all of the moderate Republican votes and Trump was able to win many states with only around a third of the votes cast. Had the 2 candidates who obviously had no chance to win dropped out before Super Tuesday, a Trump win would have been much less likely. Had all but one of them dropped out before Super Tuesday, Trump would almost certainly not have won the nomination.

For example, in my state, the 4 more-or-less moderate candidates totaled 59% of the votes and Trump got 39%. Yet Trump won 57% of the delegates because of how much the delegate allocation rules favored the candidate that won a plurality of the votes if they were the candidate liked least by a majority of voters.

Answer 8

I also cannot see any benefits for candidates - it is indeed illogical.

But from a strategic view, it would obviously be beneficial for some other candidates, which the Democratic Party wants to help.

What other candidates? Bernie Sanders? I don't think so, just because his electorate is a bit different from what Buttigieg and Klobuchar have. But for Biden - that would be the reinforcement he needs. The NYTimes also thinks in a similar way.