Ex-Vice President Mike Pence ends campaign for White House after struggling to gain traction

NEW YORK —  Former Vice President Mike Pence is dropping his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, ending his campaign for the White House after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.

“After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today,” Pence said Saturday at a Las Vegas gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

“We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets,” he said.

Pence becomes the first major candidate to leave a race that his former boss turned rival, Donald Trump, has been dominating, according to polls of GOP voters.

The decision, more than two months before the Iowa caucuses that Pence had staked his campaign on, saves him from the embarrassment of failing to qualify for the third Republican primary debate, set for Nov. 8 in Miami.

But it’s a huge blow for a politician who spent years biding his time as Trump’s most loyal lieutenant, only to be scapegoated during their final days in office when Trump became convinced that Pence somehow had the power to overturn their 2020 election loss and keep both men in office — not something a vice president could do.

While Pence averted a constitutional crisis by rejecting the scheme, he drew Trump’s wrath, and that of many Trump supporters who believed his lies and still see Pence as a traitor.