Billionaire former hedge fund manager and liberal activist Tom Steyer dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primary after a disappointing finish in the South Carolina primary.
Steyer quit the race after coming in third place in South Carolina with about 11% of the vote, failing to meet the 15% minimum threshold to earn statewide delegates.
Steyer, who entered the race in July 2019, founded two organizations to advance Democratic causes: Need To Impeach, which is advocating for Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump, and NextGen America, a group combatting climate change and backing political candidates who support strong climate action.
In a video announcing his candidacy, Steyer denounced the role of corporate money in politics, saying “we’ve got to take the corporate control out of our politics… We care about improving the world and handing it on to the next generation in a way so they can lead better lives than we’ve had. If we don’t do those two things, shame on us.”
In January 2019, Steyer said he did not plan to run for president and would be “dedicating 100% of my time and effort in 2019 towards Mr. Trump’s impeachment and removal from office,” but changed his mind several months later.
Steyer ultimately failed to carve out a unique niche for himself in the race and earn much traction.
While he positioned himself as a progressive, he was squeezed out of that lane of the primary by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who both ran on a platform of curtailing the economic and political power of billionaires like him.
Despite going all-in on early states and spending $150 million on ads, Steyer failed to earn any delegates at all or break more than 4% of the vote in either Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada as Sanders and Buttigieg largely dominated the first three contests.