Julian Castro
Julian CastroReuters

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro on Thursday ended his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

"Today, it’s with a heavy heart and profound gratitude that I will suspend my campaign for president," Castro said in a video message, conceding that it "simply isn't our time" to win the nomination.

Castro launched his presidential campaign in January 2019, but despite his efforts to cast himself as an unabashed progressive, he found himself overshadowed by rival liberals like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as well as by other young candidates like former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, noted The Hill.

He rarely broke 2 percent in national polls of the Democratic primary race, and his support in Iowa, which holds the critical first-in-the-nation caucuses, was just as low. In Nevada, the first state to vote with a significant Latino population and one that Castro had hoped would boost his prospects, polls haven’t showed him registering above 1 percent in months.

After qualifying for the first four Democratic presidential debates in 2019, he failed to make the cut for the party’s November and December forums, and appeared almost certain to miss the next debate on January 14.

Last month, Castro said that if elected, he would keep the US embassy in Israel in Jerusalem, joining several other Democratic candidates who have indicated they would not reverse Trump’s decision to relocate the embassy if elected..

President Donald Trump relocated the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, a decision that was criticized by many due to the fact that the Palestinian Arabs demand Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.