Washington, April 8: Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders ended his campaign for the 2020 US presidential elections on Wednesday. The 78-year-old socialist was considering to exit the race following a spree of electoral defeats in the primaries held since mid-March. With Sanders out, the path has been cleared for his rival Joe Biden to be officially nominated as the Democratic Party's presidential candidate.

Biden, who served as the Vice President during the Barack Obama years, re-emerged in the national political scenario with his late-entry into the Democratic primary race. After an initial setback in Nevada and Iowa, Biden ended up sweeping the entire southern belt in the Super Tuesday contest.

With the black voters, along with the traditional Democratic Party electorate solidly behind him, Biden developed a strategic edge against Sanders -- whose support base comprised largely of white youth below age of 30 and Latin American-origin voters.

Bernie Sanders Exits Race: US Media

See Bernie Sanders' Tweet

This marks the second consecutive unsuccessful campaign for Sanders. The veteran unionist was defeated in the 2016 primary contest by former First Lady Hillary Clinton, who ended up facing a loss in the crucial election against the then Republican Party candidate Donald Trump.

Sanders' supporters - a large chunk of whom had shifted their support to Trump in the 2016 final battle - had then blamed the Democratic National Committee (DNC) of rigging the primaries in favour of Clinton.

Similar to 2016, Sanders had drawn criticism throughout his campaign from the Democratic Party's establishment. The septuagenarian was predicted by a section of the party to lose the battle against Republicans due to his "Left" politics.

President Donald Trump, in the initial phase of Sanders' 2020 campaign, had predicted him to be "screwed again" by the Democratic establishment. In a series of posts on Twitter, Trump had said that he was unsure whether Sanders would be "treated fairly" by the Democratic Party, unlike 2016.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 08, 2020 09:16 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).