Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington announced Wednesday he is no longer seeking the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. | John Locher/AP Photo 2020 elections Jay Inslee drops out of Democratic presidential race

Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington pulled out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination on Wednesday, saying “it has become clear I’m not going to be carrying the ball. I’m not going to become president.”

Inslee ran on a platform that focused on combating climate change, and said he was encouraged by the enthusiasm he saw for the issue during his campaign. He made the announcement on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and said he was not ready to endorse another candidate at this time.


Some Democrats began receiving word that he would cease his campaign a few hours before his appearance on MSNBC.

Inslee’s decision to drop out comes about a week before the deadline to qualify for the next Democratic debate. He did qualify for the first and second debates, but as the requirements became tougher, Inslee's small window to stay relevant closed in the primary. He struggled to gain any real traction, and while he had met the donor threshold set by the Democratic National Committee for the September debate, he was nowhere near meeting the polling requirement. Ten of the remaining 22 candidates have qualified so far.

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In an email to supporters announcing his decision to drop out, Inslee acknowledged that it quickly became clear he would not be able to reach the polling threshold, even as he garnered the 130,000 donors needed.

“On Monday, our campaign hit one of two critical DNC thresholds to qualify for the next debate — 130,000 grassroots donors,” Inslee said in the email. “Reaching that challenging milestone proves the strong support that defeating climate change has amongst the grassroots of our party. However, at the same time we reached this threshold, it became clear that we would not meet the DNC’s polling threshold, thus we would not have been invited to the fall debates.”

The Washington governor was a long shot from the beginning of the race, starting out with a tiny war chest and no real name identification. He framed his candidacy almost exclusively around climate change, hoping that it would set him apart from the rest of the field. But he never really caught fire among the Democratic field, consistently polling in the low single digits and establishing essentially no presence in the early-primary states.

Inslee plans to announce in an email to supporters on Thursday that he's running for a third term for governor next year, according to multiple Democrats with knowledge of those plans.

In Washington state, other Democrats eyeing a run for governor had been waiting with increasing urgency for Inslee to decide on his path going forward. His team had kept in contact with key Democrats and would-be candidates interested in running for governor if he didn't. In the last round of calls to these candidates and their teams, Inslee’s aides said that they were focused on meeting the thresholds for the next debates. Those Democrats on the other side of the calls took that as a strong sign that Inslee would probably drop out if he didn’t make the next debate.

After making his announcement on MSNBC, Inslee addressed his supporters in a string of Twitter messages.

“So early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and organize,” he said in one. “Together, we will continue the fight to defeat the climate crisis.”