From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is the Daily.

Today, the Democratic presidential race enters a punishing new phase, specifically designed

to reward front-mothers and push out lesser-known candidates. Alex Burns, on how that will influence

the kind of campaign that Democratic voters get. It's Wednesday, September 4.

Alex Burns, how do you think about this particular phase of the presidential campaign?

You know, the fall is traditionally the beginning of the sprint, right? When the campaign really

starts to accelerate towards Iowa, towards New Hampshire, and the candidate start spending all

that money they've raised, stepping up their travel schedules, and in some cases, dropping out of

the race, that we are very, very close to what will become, I think, a kind of sudden death phase

of this campaign, where the people who, exactly, were the people who clearly have not made it, or have

not put together campaigns that can go the distance, start to bow to that reality. We've already seen

that to a limited degree over the last few weeks. Who is already bowing to reality? We've had five

candidates drop out since the beginning of the summer. Today ends our presidential campaign.

The first one was Eric Swalwell, Congressman from California. If there was a viable chance,

I would not be standing here today. Congressman Seth Molten of Massachusetts.

It's a hard decision to quit the race, but I'm very proud of the campaign.

You had two current and former governors, Jay Inesley of Washington State.

But it's become clear that I'm not going to be carrying the ball. I'm not going to be the

president, starting with drawing tonight from the race. John Hickenloper of Colorado dropped out

of the race. Today, I'm ending my campaign for president, but I will never stop believing that

America can only move forward when we work together. And then most recently,

Hey, everyone. I wanted you to hear it from me first. But after more than eight incredible

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