On Tuesday, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb told reporters he is dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination.
“I am stepping aside from the Democratic Party process, but I will never abandon my duty to the people who keep this country secure here at home and abroad,” he told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “I feel much freer now.” After explaining that his views on everything from unions to guns to affirmative action are “not compatible” with the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, Webb insisted he will remain “fully engaged” in the race, but says exactly how that will happen will be revealed in the coming weeks.
Webb told reporters he continues to toy with the idea of launching a third-party bid for the White House, saying he’s received “hundreds of letters” urging him to do so. “I know the histories of independent candidates. They tend to top out around 20 percent, historically,” he said. “But because of the paralysis between our two parties, there is a time an independent candidacy actually could win.”
Over the last few months, since declaring his bid for president, Webb has held barely any campaign events in early primary states. His poll numbers have hovered in the low single digits.
“We didn’t make as many visits as we could have,” said Webb Tuesday, citing “financial resources” as the reason. But he also repeated previous complaints that he hasn’t been treated fairly in the race, particularly in the first Democratic debate earlier this month.
“When you get 14 minutes, and the leading candidate gets 32 minutes, and the way the questions were being asked were designed to do that, I don’t think it’s a fair process,” he griped.
Still, the man who quit Congress after one term insisted that if he ran as an Independent candidate, he would pose a threat to the two major parties and their candidates, even boasting he could beat both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in a general election.
“More people in this country call themselves Independents than Republicans or Democrats, and I agree,” he said. “We are more than a label. Americans are disgusted right now that Republicans and Democrats call each other the enemy instead of reaching across the table to work together. Americans don’t like the extremes to which both parties have moved, and I don’t either.”