Yang: ‘Someone needs to pull an Andrew Yang’ and drop out of Democratic primary
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said Saturday that the still-wide Democratic presidential field needs to unite, and joked that someone ought to “pull an Andrew Yang” and drop out of the race.
“The rest of the field needs to consolidate, ideally,” Yang said on CNN. “And each candidate wants to be the last person standing to absorb the non-Bernie energy,” meaning front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
“Someone needs to pull an Andrew Yang,” Yang said with a laugh, referencing when he ended his own presidential campaign just last week. At the time, he told supporters he had done the math and did not see a path to secure the nomination. Yang has since joined CNN as a political commentator.
His comments come after CNN projected Sanders would win the Nevada caucuses. The senator’s projected win in the state follows a win in New Hampshire and a strong showing in Iowa, where results are still being examined from the state’s caucuses and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg holds a narrow lead.
“The problem for Bernie is that, you know, he’s unlikely to get an outright majority of delegates heading into the convention, which is going to set the stage for the superdelegates to emerge, and then you’re looking at a contested convention,” Yang said.
He said a contested convention is a “dream scenario” for the rest of the Democratic field, “because they’re going to go in there with delegates, the superdelegates, let’s say, are not going to be favorably disposed towards Bernie, and each of the remaining candidates will say like, you know, ‘I’m the pick.’ “
“So that’s the dream that’s going to keep every other candidate in the race,” Yang said.
To become the nominee for president on the first ballot of the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee this July, a candidate needs to be nominated by a majority of the pledged delegates attending. The national convention delegates come from all 50 states plus Washington, DC, each US territory and Democrats abroad.
Pledged delegates are expected to vote for particular candidates on the convention on the first ballot. Unpledged delegates — also known as superdelegates — can vote on the first ballot only if it is mathematically impossible for them to change the outcome of the pledged delegates’ vote. But if no candidate wins a majority on the first ballot, the superdelegates can vote on subsequent ballots — and the pledged delegates are free to vote for whoever they wish.
Yang rose from obscurity to become a highly visible Democratic candidate, rallying a coalition of liberal Democrats, libertarians and some disaffected Republicans into a devoted group of followers known as the Yang Gang.
His campaign slogan was “Make America Think Harder,” with the acronym MATH. On the campaign trail, Yang often told crowds that the biggest change possible in the White House after Trump would be an “Asian guy who likes math.”
