ELECTION 2016

Carly Fiorina Drops Out of Republican Presidential Race

By ASHLEY PARKER
Carly Fiorina campaigned near a polling place in Bedford, N.H., on Tuesday. Todd Heisler/The New York Times 
Carly Fiorina, 61, the former chairwoman of Hewlett-Packard, suspended her presidential campaign Wednesday, announcing her decisions on social media after poor showings in the New Hampshire and Iowa nominating contests.
“This campaign was always about citizenship — taking back our country from a political class that only serves the big, the powerful, the wealthy, and the well connected,” she said in a statement posted on Facebook. “I will continue to serve in order to restore citizen government to this great nation so that together we may fulfill our potential.”
Ms. Fiorina entered the race presenting herself as the Republican answer to Hillary Clinton — a woman who was willing, eager even, to aggressively attack Mrs. Clinton, without the risk of being accused of sexism like her male rivals. After being relegated to the so-called “undercard” stage in the first Republican debate, she used a breakout performance there to generate interest and enthusiasm for her candidacy.
At the next debate, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Ms. Fiorina was in the prime-time lineup and again delivered a strong performance, deftly parrying a personal attack from Donald J. Trump, who had seemed to disparage her appearance.

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In her most memorable comments from that debate, she claimed that a widely disseminated undercover video of a Planned Parenthood clinic showed “a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.” Although the video contained no such scene, only an interview with a person who described having seen something akin to it, Ms. Fiorina insisted in later interviews that she had seen the fetus.
Lacking a robust on-the-ground campaign organization, Ms. Fiorina began to fade from view. Tales from her turbulent time at the helm of Hewlett-Packard, a job from which she was ultimately fired, began emerging, further hurting her campaign. And the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., similarly turned attention from her to some of her rivals who claimed stronger national security credentials.
Mrs. Fiorina’s crowds dwindled, and she was never able to recover, winning just 4 percent of the vote in New Hampshire after getting just 2 percent in Iowa. She was left out of last Saturday night’s debate, missing out on free television exposure because there was no undercard debate.
In her statement, Mrs. Fiorina also highlighted her status as the only woman in the Republican field, offering a message of feminism.
”To young girls and women across the country, I say: do not let others define you. Do not listen to anyone who says you have to vote a certain way or for a certain candidate because you’re a woman,” she said. “That is not feminism. Feminism doesn’t shut down conversations or threaten women. It is not about ideology. It is not a weapon to wield against your political opponent. A feminist is a woman who lives the life she chooses and uses all her God-given gifts.”