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Rick Santorum Suspends Presidential Campaign, Endorses Marco Rubio

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum ® sus­pend­ed his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign on Wednesday. “We are sus­pend­ing this cam­paign as of this moment,” he said on Fox News. He also announced that he is endors­ing Sen. Marco Rubio (R‑Fla.).

The news, first report­ed by CNN and the Washington Post ear­li­er on Wednesday, comes after Santorum fin­ished with just one per­cent of the vote in the 2016 Iowa GOP cau­cus. The loss had already prompt­ed his cam­paign to post­pone a planned 46-coun­ty tour in South Carolina. Santorum had hoped to earn the back­ing of evan­gel­i­cal Christian vot­ers and peel away sup­port­ers from some of his con­ser­v­a­tive rivals, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas). He announced his pres­i­den­tial run on May 27 in a Pennsylvania fac­to­ry, join­ing an already-crowd­ed field of GOP con­tenders. His high­ly con­ser­v­a­tive plat­form, fueled by his own blue-col­lar roots, rest­ed upon rein­ing in spend­ing and fight­ing on behalf of the American worker.

Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, speaks during the Republican presidential candidate debate at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Candidates from both parties are crisscrossing Iowa, an agricultural state of about 3 million people in the U.S. heartland that will hold the first votes of the 2016 election on Feb. 1. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Rick Santorum, for­mer sen­a­tor from Pennsylvania and 2016 Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, speaks dur­ing the Republican pres­i­den­tial can­di­date debate at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Candidates from both par­ties are criss­cross­ing Iowa, an agri­cul­tur­al state of about 3 mil­lion peo­ple in the U.S. heart­land that will hold the first votes of the 2016 elec­tion on Feb. 1. Photographer: Daniel Acker/​Bloomberg via Getty Images

“It’s time to revi­tal­ize man­u­fac­tur­ing, pro­cess­ing, con­struc­tion and ener­gy sec­tors of our econ­o­my again so America can once again thrive,” his cam­paign web­site said. On some issues, he veered away from many in his par­ty, propos­ing to raise the min­i­mum wage by 50 cents per year over three years dur­ing a CNN Republican debate. Santorum is also known for his hawk­ish for­eign pol­i­cy. He has staunch­ly opposed the nuclear deal struck between world pow­ers and Iran, call­ing it “the great­est betray­al of American nation­al secu­ri­ty” in U.S. his­to­ry. He also advo­cat­ed for 10,000 U.S. troops to defeat the Islamic State, a ter­ror­ist group also referred to as ISIS or ISIL.
His run has been marred by con­tro­ver­sial com­ments on abor­tion, homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and immi­gra­tion. In August, he said that undoc­u­ment­ed par­ents are “like some­one who robs a bank because they want to feed their family.”

Santorum ran in the 2012 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion on a sim­i­lar plat­form, but with a greater degree of suc­cess. He won 11 pri­maries and cam­paigned in all 99 of Iowa’s coun­ties on a tight bud­get, lead­ing him to a very nar­row vic­to­ry in the 2012 Iowa cau­cus. (He fin­ished 11th out of 12 can­di­dates in this year’s Iowa cau­cus.) Some of his com­ments, how­ev­er, land­ed him in hot water through­out the cam­paign. He famous­ly told Fox News’ Chris Wallace in 2011 that gay sol­diers “cause prob­lems for peo­ple liv­ing in close quarters.”

Santorum did­n’t drop out of that pri­ma­ry race until April of 2012, after a series of defeats and the hos­pi­tal­iza­tion of his daugh­ter, Bella, who suf­fers from a rare genet­ic dis­or­der. At that point, he osten­si­bly hand­ed the 2012 GOP nom­i­na­tion over to Mitt Romney. Santorum served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1991 to 1995 and in the Senate from 1995 to 2007. In 1996, he co-authored a GOP wel­fare reform bill, which President Bill Clinton ulti­mate­ly signed into law. Rick Santorum Suspends Presidential Campaign, Endorses Marco Rubio