Senator Kamala Harris of California dropped out of the Democratic presidential race on Tuesday after months of slumping poll numbers, a dramatic comedown after her campaign began with significant promise.
The decision to drop out of the race comes after a upheaval among staff and disarray among Ms. Harris’s own allies. She told supporters in an email on Tuesday that she lacked the money needed to fully finance a competitive campaign.
“My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” Ms. Harris wrote in the email.
The announcement is both dramatic and unexpected, perhaps the most sudden development to date in a Democratic presidential campaign where Ms. Harris began in the top tier.
Ms. Harris had struggled financially in recent months as her online fund-raising slowed and her large donors increasingly turned away from her campaign. In the third quarter of the year, she spent more than $1.41 for every dollar she raised, burning through millions of her treasury.
She stopped buying advertisements, both online and on television, slashed staff in New Hampshire and retrenched to Iowa, where she spent the Thanksgiving holiday with her family.
But it was not enough, as the determination was made that she did not have enough financial resources to compete, even as a supportive super PAC began reserving ads on Tuesday, the day she told people she was dropping out.
Jonathan Martin contributed reporting.
This is a developing story and will be updated.