It's been a turbulent election season for female candidates, from Kamala Harris's relatively early exit from the 2020 presidential race to Amy Klobuchar's more recent withdrawal and ensuing endorsement of Joe Biden.

As more and more female candidates exited the field, many voters who hoped to see a woman in the White House rallied around Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, only to see her suspend her campaign this Thursday. That leaves just one woman in the raceHawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbardand a whole lot of questions about how she's made it this far.

Gabbard's campaign has always been something of a slow burn, with many voters seemingly unaware that she's actually still in the race; after all, she hasn't been present at recent Democratic debates, and she walked away from Super Tuesday with only two delegates. So what is it that keeps Gabbard's campaign going, when far better-funded candidates like Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg have dropped out?

It's unlikely that Gabbard will manage to overtake frontrunners Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, although she does share some political views with the latter; she backs Medicare for All, though not to the extent that Sanders does, and believes in free college and reducing defense spending.

However, progressive voters have been slow to rally behind Gabbard, in part because of her ties to anti-Muslim Hindu nationalists, controversial past stances on LGBTQ+ rights, and support from conservative figures like Steve Bannon and Ron Paul. Gabbard is currently polling at roughly 1%, but the support she does command seems indefatigable even in the face of near-certain defeat.

Who are the people that make up Gabbard's support base, and what are they thinking as the race narrows? When asked what sets Gabbard apart from other candidates remaining in the field, Michelle Hunter, a cosmetologist and Gabbard volunteer based in Oklahoma City, praised Gabbard's leadership skills: "The message of peace and love and respect that [Gabbard] shares is really important to me. I pay close attention to her interviews and I have never seen her interrupt anybody or let anybody interrupt her."

Hunter is one of what she describes as a "handful" of volunteers for Gabbard in Oklahoma City, and she notes that on Super Tuesday, Oklahoma polled twice as high for Gabbard as any other state. "If we can get that done with just five, six, seven volunteers, imagine what we could do with more resources," Hunter told Vogue on Thursday.

Hunter points to a "media blackout" as one of the reasons Gabbard hasn't performed better, but even in an increasingly tight race, she feels a connection to a candidate she sees as a fellow outsider: "My whole life I've been told that I don't have a voice," said Hunter, adding, "If I gave up every time someone told me I would fail, my life would suck."

Now that Elizabeth Warren has left the race, Bernie Sanders's campaign is the most high-profile example of a political nonconformist corralling widespread support with the American public; nonetheless, Gabbard has thus far resisted the temptation to follow Marianne Williamson in exiting the race and endorsing Sanders.

A clue as to why Gabbard is still in the race may be found in a 2019 speech she gave, telling a crowd, "Im not running for president to be president. Im running for president to be able to bring about this sea change in our foreign policy that is so necessary for us and for the world, and Im most qualified to do that."

While Gabbard might not yet have effected the kind of "sea change" she might have hoped for, her sheer determination to stay in the race even as more widely popular candidates pack it in certainly sends a clear message: Don't count her out, because she's in it for the long haul, and so are her supporters.

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How Tulsi Gabbard Became the Last Woman Standing in the 2020 Presidential Race - Vogue