Democrat Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur who promised he would give every American adult $1,000 per month if he was elected president, suspended his 2020 Democratic presidential campaign last Tuesday.
Just one week later, Yang has announced he has joined CNN as an on-air pundit.
The 45-year-old struggled to get attention in a crowded Democratic primary race. But he built a small following online that expanded to give him enough donors and polling numbers to qualify for the first six debates.
I’m excited to join @CNN to help shed light on the election and the candidates’ experiences. Learned a lot these past months and am glad to contribute to the public discussion.
— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) February 19, 2020
Yang outlasted senators and governors, and after initially self-funding his campaign, he raised more money than most of his rivals, bringing in over $16 million in the final quarter of last year. It was a bigger haul than all but the top four candidates: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
“We went from a mailing list that started with just my Gmail contact list to receiving donations from over 400,000 people around the country and millions more who supported this campaign,” Yang said before pledging to support whoever becomes the Democratic nominee.
The graduate of Brown University and Columbia Law School gave campaign speeches full of statistics and studies that often resembled an economics seminar. His supporters, known as the Yang Gang, donned blue hats and pins with the word MATH — short for his slogan Make America Think Harder.
Before dropping out, Yang’s poll numbers were high enough, combined with his fundraising strength, to qualify him for all of the 2019 debates, though he fell short of Democratic National Committee’s qualifications to participate in the January debate in Iowa.
Yang spent most of January in the leadoff caucus state, including a 17-day bus tour during which he told voters his finish in Iowa would “shock the world.”
He finished 6th in the state with 1 percent of the vote.
Yang then finished 8th in New Hampshire with 2.8 percent of the vote before he formally dropped out of the race.
The Associated Press contributed to this article