Twenty-four hours after officially being declared the winner of the Iowa caucus, Pete Buttigieg is calling it quits. The former mayor of South Bend is suspending his campaign. 

The timing is crucial, coming just two days before Super Tuesday. A campaign aide told CNN:

He believes this is the right thing to do right now for our country to heal this divided nation and defeat President Trump. He decided that now was the time and I think that is exactly why he is getting out. 

He also didn’t have a path forward.

Mayor Pete finished first in Iowa, second in New Hampshire, third in Nevada and fourth in South Carolina. (Do you detect a trend?) Despite having far more success and garnering far more media attention than a small-town mayor could have expected, Buttigieg was simply unable to broaden his base of support. In South Carolina, Saturday, Mayor Pete was only able to garner 2% of the black vote. 

The news had barely broken about Buttigieg’s departure before President Trump weighed in.

Pete Buttigieg is OUT. All of his SuperTuesday votes will go to Sleepy Joe Biden. Great timing. This is the REAL beginning of the Dems taking Bernie out of play – NO NOMINATION, AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 1, 2020

Indeed, Mayor Pete’s surprise withdrawal could signal an effort to begin unifying the Democratic party against socialist Bernie Sanders.  Buttigieg had been positioning himself as a “moderate” alternative to Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but Joe Biden’s landslide in South Carolina and Lazarus-like resuscitation of his campaign put Joe back in play as the “moderate” choice. 

Buttigieg will be addressing supporters this evening in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana.

And so ends the campaign of the first openly gay major party candidate for U.S. president. But at only 38-years-old, it’s a fools bet to think that this is the last we’ll see of Mayor Pete.