Rick Perry, struggling to raise money and languishing near the bottom in opinion polls, on Friday became the first member of the crowded Republican field to drop out of the 2016 White House race.
Perry, a former Texas governor, had been excluded from the initial prime-time Republican debates and was forced to stop paying some members of his staff recently after his campaign funds ran low.
"Today I am suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States," he said during a speech in St. Louis, adding that the Republicans have a "tremendous" field of candidates.