Carly Fiorina Drops Out With Message for Clinton Supporters on Feminism

Carly Fiorina, the Republican Party's sole female candidate in 2016, has dropped out of the race after results in the New Hampshire primary saw the candidate finish with only 4 percent of the vote.

"While I suspend my candidacy today, I will continue to travel this country and fight for those Americans who refuse to settle for the way things are and a status quo that no longer works for them," Fiorina said in an email to supporters Wednesday afternoon.

Fiorina also made a parting dig at Hillary Clinton and the recent feminist backlash toward the Democratic candidate that is apparently damaging her prospects among young women voters.

"To young girls and women across the country, I say: do not let others define you," Fiorina wrote. "Do not listen to anyone who says you have to vote a certain way or for a certain candidate because you're a woman. That is not feminism. Feminism doesn't shut down conversations or threaten women."

Related: The Feminist Backlash Isn't Helping Hillary Clinton with Young Women

Fiorina, 61, a former technology executive and CEO, first came to prominence last fall after two notable debate performances, which lead to surging poll numbers and increasing attention from major Republican donors. The billionaire Koch brothers, who declared that they would spend about a billion dollars on the 2016 campaign, were reportedly looking into backing the candidate last October.

Once hailed as a popular choice, especially Republican woman in an overcrowded field of male candidates, Fiorina's star power began to fade as the larger-than-life personalities of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz began to take over debates and major media coverage toward the end of last year. She has since failed several times to make it onto the main stage at debates, including at the last forum in New Hampshire, where she was relegated to the undercard event.

In Iowa, Fiorina finished sixth place with less than 2 percent of the vote, but continued to campaign hard in New Hampshire, where she visited a drug rehab center in Manchester, New Hampshire and spoke on the need to recognize substance abuse and addiction as a disease. During that visit, Fiorina openly discussed her own family's experience with addiction. Her daughter struggled with alcohol and prescription opioid abuse before her death from an overdose.

Related: Presidential Candidates Are Putting a National Spotlight on New Hampshire's Heroin Problem

But Fiorina actually slipped to seventh place in New Hampshire, leading only Ben Carson and Jim Gilmore, causing her to end her campaign today.

Fiorina has also been one of the most outspoken candidates against abortion. At the second Republican debate in September, the candidate made a grisly but untrue claim about footage from a Planned Parenthood clinic in which she claims to have seen "a fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says 'We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain'."

The candidate, it turned out, was describing someone else's account of watching a video.

Fiorina's record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard was also the focus of some scrutiny in the early days of her campaign. Despite her declaration that the company flourished under her tenure, the company experienced massive layoffs and revenue losses when she was at its helm.

Related: After New Hampshire: Christie Is Out, But Kasich Isn't Yet the Anti-Trump