Sen. Amy Klobuchar endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, officially ending her presidential campaign.
“It is up to us, all of us, to put our country back together, to heal this country, and then to build something even greater. I believe we can do this together,” Klobuchar said at a Biden rally in Dallas. “And that is why today, I am ending my campaign, and endorsing Joe Biden for president.”
Klobuchar used her speaking time to riff on her own campaign stump speech, but applied her words to Biden.
“If you feel tired of the noise and the nonsense in our politics, and if you are tired of the extremes, you have home with me,” she said, adding: “And I think you know you have a home with Joe Biden.”
Her argument for endorsing Biden relied first and foremost on her belief that Biden will return the White House to “decency” and “dignity.” And, she said, he can win the coalition that she sought to win throughout her own presidential campaign.
“He can bring our country together and build that coalition of our Democratic base, as well as independents and moderate Republicans,” she said. “Because we do not want to just eke by a victory, we want to win big.”
Two other former candidates endorsed Biden in Dallas: Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Both Buttigieg and Klobuchar told reporters they made the decision to drop after the South Carolina primary results.
Most of Minnesota’s Democratic congressional delegation and several state officials endorsed Klobuchar before she dropped her bid. (Rep. Ilhan Omar and Attorney General Keith Ellison endorsed Sanders.) At least one of them has followed Klobuchar’s lead in endorsing Biden: Rep. Collin Peterson, a conservative Democrat who represents Minnesota’s Seventh District.
“If we spend the next four months, dividing our party and going at each other, we will spend the next four years watching Donald Trump tear apart this country,” Klobuchar said at the rally. “We need to unite our party and our country and to do it not just with our words but with our actions.”