Pamela Engel
REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former Florida Governor
Jeb Bush (L) pose for a photograph together after a 2012 Romney for
President campaign rally in Tampa, Florida October 31, 2012.
Former
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney released a statement
Saturday praising Jeb Bush after the latter dropped out of the race for
the Republican presidential nomination.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who lost to President
Barack Obama in the 2012 election, commended Bush for "follow[ing] his
family's pattern of putting country above himself."
"His campaign has been about answers to real problems and about policies to strengthen our country," Romney
said in a statement posted on his Facebook page.
"It has been a campaign conducted in the finest tradition of dignity
and integrity and Jeb Bush gave it his all: he can have no regrets. I am
proud to call him a friend," Romney added.
Bush
suspended his campaign Saturday night after a disappointing showing in the South Carolina primary.
He entered the process as the favorite to win the Republican
nomination, but his campaign lost momentum throughout the summer and
fall, as real-estate mogul Donald Trump's campaign unexpectedly took
off. And low-polling Republican candidates
have faced pressure from their party to drop out so that establishment donors can consolidate support behind an alternative to Trump.
At the time he left the race, Bush had 8.3% of the vote in South
Carolina with 58% of precincts reporting, putting him in fourth place
behind the projected winner, Trump, and the two candidates battling for
second place, Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
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