Bernie Sanders announced Wednesday he is exiting the Democratic presidential race, leaving Joe Biden as the last man standing in a contest that once had more than two dozen contenders.

“I think you know the truth, and that is that we are now some 300 delegates behind Vice President Biden, and the path toward victory is virtually impossible,” said Sanders in a webcast that he started by thanking his supporters. “I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful. And so, today, I am announcing the suspension of my campaign.”

Just two months ago, Wall Street analysts were warning about a potential drop for stocks SPX, -1.11% DJIA, -0.87% if Sanders, a democratic socialist, continued to lead in polls and perform well in the fight for the Democratic nominee challenging President Trump in November.

But Biden re-emerged as the front-runner in the party’s White House race about a month ago, powered by primary wins in South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states. Sanders — Vermont’s junior senator and a fundraising juggernaut — had been facing calls to drop out in recent weeks.

After the announcement from Sanders, Biden praised his rival for bringing attention to issues such as income inequality, universal health care, climate change, college affordability and student-loan debt.

“Senator Sanders and his supporters have changed the dialogue in America,” Biden said in a Medium post on Wednesday. “Issues which had been given little attention — or little hope of ever passing — are now at the center of the political debate.”

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A centerpiece of the Sanders campaign was his “Medicare for All” plan with no role for private insurers. Biden and other more centrist Democratic presidential hopefuls argued in their debates for keeping private insurance as part of the U.S. health-care system.

Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, reacted to the Sanders news by saying it’s now “all but official that the Democrat establishment got the candidate they wanted in Joe Biden.”

Parscale also said “Democrat elites” have “shoved Bernie Sanders to the side for a second time, leaving many of his supporters looking for a new home,” in a reference to the senator’s second-place finish in the 2016 Democratic race.

Sanders on Wednesday said some supporters may want him to “fight on to the last ballot cast at the Democratic convention.” But given the coronavirus crisis, he said he “cannot in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour.”

At the same time, the independent lawmaker said he will stay on ballots in upcoming primaries and continue to amass delegates in order to “exert significant influence over the party platform and other functions.”

“While this campaign is coming to an end, our movement is not,” Sanders also said in Wednesday’s webcast. “The fight for justice is what our movement remains about. Today, I congratulate Joe Biden, a very decent man who I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward.”