Former Cranston, R.I., Mayor Steve Laffey announced Friday he is dropping out of the Republican race for president in 2024 after failing to gain traction with his candidacy.
Laffey said in a release he is also leaving the Republican Party because it has become a “laughingstock” under the “shadow” of former President Trump. He said he has been a Republican for his entire life, and he felt that his principles and the party’s were aligned.
“However, what I've witnessed since 2015 has made it clear that our political sphere has deviated far from its ideals,” Laffey said.
He revealed his intention to drop out of the race in an interview with ABC News on Friday. He told the outlet he is dropping out for financial reasons and because he no longer believes in the GOP’s message, saying he will become an independent.
"I don't have an avenue to tell people with a straight face, 'It's now October — how do I take off and take New Hampshire and keep going?' But at the same time, I'm telling people the GOP is dead," Laffey told ABC.
He said in the release Trump is “the significant factor” in the party’s “rapid movement towards authoritarianism.” He said he believed a “yearning” existed within the party to choose a candidate free from Trump’s shadow, but he was wrong.
Laffey formally launched his candidacy in February, becoming one of the first Republicans to join the race after Trump did last November. He previously served as the mayor of Cranston, just outside of Providence, from 2003 to 2007 and made an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination for Senate in the state in 2006.
Laffey said in the release that a jury finding Trump liable for sexual battery and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll should have been a moment to “galvanize” Christians against him, but that did not happen.
Trump has remained the clear front-runner for the nomination, building up a significant lead in national polls and in the early-voting states.
Laffey told ABC he does not have set plans for his next step, but he will be involved in public life at some point in the future.
"You haven't heard the last from me. It just won't be, at least for now, as a Republican candidate for president, and it won't be as a Republican,” he said.
