Elizabeth Warren Assessing Candidacy After Super Tuesday Rout

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is assessing the future of her candidacy, her campaign manager said Wednesday, after a dismal performance on Super Tuesday stripped her of any path to the nomination.

“Last night, we fell short of viability goals and projections and we are disappointed in the results,” Roger Lau said in an all-staff email Wednesday, according to a copy obtained by Bloomberg News.

Warren was unable to do better than third place in any of the 14 states that held primaries on Super Tuesday, including in her home state of Massachusetts. As final Super Tuesday results were coming in, she had garnered just 41 delegates, compared with 357 for Joe Biden and 306 for Bernie Sanders. Warren had earlier failed to break through in any of the first four primaries.

Warren is going to take the next few days “to think through the right way to continue this fight,” Lau said. “This decision is her in hands, and it’s important that she has the time and space to consider what comes next.”

Warren has not indicated who she would endorse if she drops out. She shares a policy vision -- including support for Medicare for All -- with her progressive rival Sanders. But she could back Biden in the name of party unity, as she has criticized Sanders for being too divisive.

“Elizabeth believes in her ideas and in the big, structural change that is badly needed to root out corruption in Washington and will decide what she thinks is the best way to advance them,” Lau said.

Sanders said at a news conference in Burlington, Vermont, that he spoke to Warren over the phone. He said she had not made any decisions and should be given “the time and the space” to do so.

Biden was the big winner of Super Tuesday, beating Sanders to reclaim his front-runnner status for the nomination. Michael Bloomberg, who won just one contest -- in American Samoa -- dropped out of the race Wednesday morning and announced he was endorsing Biden.

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

Warren is spending the day in Boston and has no public events planed until Friday. She has scheduled to campaign in Michigan, Arizona and Idaho this weekend.

--With assistance from Tyler Pager.

To contact the reporter on this story: Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Washington at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, Magan Crane

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